Well, blog, I promised you a fun post, didn't I? Let it never be said that I don't deliver. But be warned, my next post will be extra melancholy to make up for this. And now...
Songs You've Heard and Danced To Recently (That Are Grossly Offensive)
(Originally Written on November 19, 2011)
- Song: “Sexy
Bitch” by David Guetta ft. Akon
“She’s nothing like a girl you’ve ever seen before / Nothing you can compare to your neighborhood whore / I’m trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful… / Damn Girl! / Damn, you’s a sexy bitch, sexy bitch! / Damn, you’s a sexy bitch!”
Problem:
Wait. You want to not be disrespectful? So you took the high road and, instead of comparing her to a whore, you settled for “bitch?” The only way that’s not disrespectful is if you were previously going to call her something worse, like “cunt,” and abruptly realised there were kids present and you had to tone it down a notch.
And don’t try to tell me that it’s a compliment because you prefaced it with “sexy.” An insult laced with a compliment (“You sure are good at tennis for such a fat doughy fuck!”) is still an insult.
Possible Solution:
Pretend this is a subtle love song about a rapper suffering from Tourette’s who is struggling to win the girl of his dreams.
- Song: “Whatcha
Say” by Jason Derula
“Tell me tell me what to say I / I don´t want you to leave me / Though you caught me cheating… / Cause when the roof caved in and the truth came out / I just didn’t know what to do / But when I become a star we´ll be living so large / I´ll do anything for you.”
Problem:
Basically this is a song about an unfaithful guy who wants his gullible girlfriend to forgive him. The thing is, it’s not like he was having an affair, felt guilty, ended it, and is coming clean and asking for forgiveness. No, the song implicitly states that he was in the process of cheating on her and she caught him. And now, suddenly, he’s sorry. Am I supposed to believe he was going to end it? Let’s face it, the guy isn’t sad he had an affair. He’s sad he got caught. If he hadn’t been, it likely would have continued. The poor girl is being totally duped. And by the way, you know the part about how he’d do anything for his girlfriend? Well, has he tried not cheating on her? Bitches love not being cheated on.
Possible Solution:
This is actually a song about an unscrupulous roofer, right? He’s trying to convince a dissatisfied customer whose roof just collapsed that he’s truly sorry for cutting corners and using inferior building materials and he’ll fix it.
- Song: “I
Like It” by Enrique Iglesias
“Girl please excuse me / If I’m coming too strong / But tonight is the night / We can really let go / My girlfriend’s out of town / And I’m all alone / Your boyfriend’s on vacation / And he doesn’t have to know.”
Problem:
This is a blatant song about cheating on one’s significant other. It’s not like they’re in an open relationship and it’s cool. No, the singer is actually proposing they keep the whole thing a secret. Being unfaithful and lying about it is not okay.
Possible Solution:
Okay, get this. The boyfriend is not actually on vacation. He’s madly in love with his girlfriend and wants to marry her, but questions her faithfulness. So he hatches a plan. He knows that his girlfriend’s very favourite singer in the world is Enrique. He hired Enrique to tempt her. If she spurns his advances, then Enrique is going to pop the question on the boyfriend’s behalf and also sing at their wedding. Isn’t that sweet?!
- Song: “Don’t
Trust Me” by 3oh!3
“Hush girl / Shut your lips / Do the Helen Keller / And talk with your hips.”
Problem:
Holy shit, are you forgetting that Helen Keller was a real person, who had major disabilities and strove to overcome them? Also, most history books agree she spoke with her hands, not her hips.
Possible Solution:
The person you’re hitting on at the club is not only blind and deaf, but lacks hands, thereby forcing her to talk with her hips, perhaps by gyrating out Morse code or something.
("But for all the little ladies who really got flare /
Be like a vegetable and dance in yo' chair!")
- Song: “Alors
On Danse” by Stromae ft. Gilbere Forte and Kanye West
“Wave your hands in the sky / if anybody got 5 dollars in your pocket right now / I call this club Titanic / why because it’s going down!”
Problem:
Alright, two problems. First and much more obvious is the fact that the Titanic was one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history and over 1,500 people died. Imagine how offended you would be if we changed the word “Titantic” to “Twin Towers.” Yeah. But the second problem is that Kanye, who sings this particular verse, appears to be about to mug everyone in the club. Generally, it’s retarded to go out to a dark, crowded club and advertise the wad of cash you have in your pocket. Yet, he asks everyone with money to identify themselves. That seems sort of weird. If their hands are in the air, indicating they have money, that leaves their pockets open to attack. Beware clubgoers! Kanye’s about to rob you blind, after which you’ll be forced to talk with your hips!
Possible Solution:
There’s no metaphor here. Everyone is on a yacht, having fun, unaware that they’re sinking. Kanye identifies those with money to rob them, knowing that, as was the case with the Titanic, the rich assholes will be the ones to live. After stealing their money to pay his way onto a life boat, only then does he inform them of their grim fate.
(Pictured: Fun.)
- Song: “Last
Friday Night” by Katy Perry
“We went streaking in the park / Skinny dipping in the dark / Then had a ménage à trois / Last Friday night.”
Problem:
Believe it or not, I’m not going to rag on any of the things you think I’m going to. I could point to the glorification of excessive drinking and fiscal irresponsibility, or the blatant disregard for basic legal and social behaviours. But you know what? It’s a catchy song and I don’t feel like any of the content is damning by itself. Except this line. See, “ménage à trois” is a French term meaning “household of three,” and it usually refers to a man-wife-mistress arrangement. It most often describes a long-term relationship and usually the three partners are living together. I was in a ménage à trois once. It was an eight-month-long relationship filled with eight-inch-long penises, and it was fantastic. (Disclaimer: I was informed after writing this that the penises in question were not actually eight inches. That's right; I was actually told to fix this to reflect the smaller and more accurate penis size of 7.5 inches. This is why engineers don't get laid much.) Anyway, a ménage à trois is obviously not the same as a threesome, anymore than an engagement is the same as a one night stand. And it’s not like Katy Perry was forced into using that term; she kind of took some liberties with rhyming “trois” with “law” later on. “Threesome” is actually easier to rhyme. Watch: “After having coke and rum / we had a freaky sweet threesome / Last Friday night.” Or, she could avoid labeling altogether and just describe it for us: “After everyone was nude / I fucked a couple dudes / Last Friday night!” See? Writes itself!
Possible Solution:
A one-night ménage à trois is totally possible assuming time isn’t linear. So I’m forced to the conclusion that Katy Perry has a time machine and that the point of this song has to do with the butterfly effect and her trying to fix the havoc she accidentally wrought by going back and tampering with the past. Also, one of the partners in her ménage à trois is probably a dinosaur.
(Rated XXX.)
- Song: “Don’t
Want to Go Home” by Jason Derula
“ A-yo me say day-oh / Daylight come and we don’t wanna go home / Yeah so we losing control /Turn the lights low cause we about to get blown / Let the club shut down / We won’t go oh oh oh / Burn it down / To the floor oh oh oh.”
Problem:
You might recognise these lyrics as a modified version of “The Banana Boat” song, a Jamaican calypso song best known for its awkward placement in the movie Beetlejuice. That cutesy little song you took and modified to be a club anthem? It’s kind of about slave labour. You see, in Jamaica and South America, it gets very hot during the day, so hot you can’t really work. So the workers (in this case, the dock workers) work 12-14 hour nights unloading bananas for less than a dollar a day, and when the sun rises, they go home, assuming all their bananas are accounted for. Contrasting their shitty manual labour slave-wage jobs with the lifestyle of a bunch of self-absorbed, privileged fucks who willing stay out all night drinking and have the money to do so is downright crass.
Possible Solution:
I thought up a couple good ones, actually.
First of all, perhaps this song is entirely facetious. Jason Derula is the ultimate hipster, who has ironically established himself as sort of a dick, and is now ironically mocking how modern consumeristic society is out of touch with the struggles of developing countries.
Or, secondly, Jason is on the cusp of establishing an entirely new trend of music. Take this genre to the logical extreme and start remixing all songs about oppression. Remember “Sixteen Tons,” by Merle Travis? Let’s take a second to remix that like Derula would: “Go to the bar and what do you get / Another shot drunker and deeper in debt. [drop dubstep]” Or, just imagine a dance/electronica version of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” I don’t want to ruin the premise of the song for you, but “Chariot” is the name of the girl with the Ugg boots.
Lastly, I find some solace in the fact that Derula mentions that they’re burning the club to the floor, and yet still refusing to leave. This “cleanse it with fire” approach ensures no more shitty club anthems can be recorded by Derula. And that, at least, is something all of us can be thankful for.
No comments:
Post a Comment