Monday, February 8, 2010

AND YOU THOUGHT IT COULDN'T GET WORSE THAN "CHECKS OUT MOZART WHILE SHE DOES TAE-BO": It's rare that a song makes it into the Insipidness Hall of Fame as quickly as Train's "Hey Soul Sister" has. Let's count a few of the infractions:
  • Painful Jack Johnson/Jason Mraz wannabe opening, featuring ukelele (repeated throughout song).
  • The opening lyric of "Your lipstick stains/on the front lobe/of my left side brains."
  • Gratuitous reference to awesomely bad rock band Mister Mister.
  • Reference to "Love Connection."
  • The effort to rhyme "Madonna" and "want to."
  • The singer proclaiming himself "So gangster, I'm so thug." Said singer is not Jay-Z, in which case it might be defensible.
Arrrrghhh! This is currently a top 10 single? Really?

12 comments:

  1. Joseph J. Finn3:04 PM

    Wait, Jay-Z is considered gangster these days?  RZA and Dr. Dre want a recount.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mr. Cosmo3:26 PM

    It's certainly no "In the Moonlight".

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alex Gordon3:56 PM

    Good lord that there is a bad song.

    ReplyDelete
  4. patricia5:00 PM

    It's the heart beating out of the singer's untrimmed chest that gives me hives.  Not because there is chest hair, but because this person openly sings about trimming it.  Gag.

    ReplyDelete
  5. <span>My heart is bound to beat right out my untrimmed chest</span><span> -- maybe they're making fun of some one/thing and this is supposed to be a humorous song? I kinda liked it, though it's reminding of another song that's just eluding me.
    </span>

    ReplyDelete
  6. bill.6:35 PM

    Maybe Bowling For Soup's "1985."

    ReplyDelete
  7. Nancy6:53 PM

    So bad. So very bad.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jordan7:22 PM

    I believe Mr. Carter would argue that even though he's a multi-millionaire, he's still the hardest one here.  Although I do believe he gives a way to prove ones gangster bona fides.  

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jenn.9:07 PM

    My only sense of surprise comes from the tone of surprise in this post.  If song quality were required to be a top ten single, the top 10 singles list would look remarkably different.

    ReplyDelete
  10. girard3110:02 PM

    Is he hitting on a black women? Or does "Soul Sister" mean "Soul Mate"? FYI -- If you think "Soul Sister" is bad, you clearly haven't heard "Tik Tok" or "Bed Rock" have you? Nope, you haven't.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Jennifer J.11:37 PM

    I 100% agree.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Just because something's popular doesn't make it good or bad.  It's the level of awfulness (and derivativeness) in this particular song that strikes me.  "Tik Tok" sucks, but it sucks in a somewhat novel way, with its fusion of a female singer, electronica, hip-hop, and auto-tune.  There is literally nothing in "Hey Soul Sister" that we haven't heard better before.

    ReplyDelete