The Ten Worst Songs of 2012: What NOT to Expect

So, you’ve watched “The Ten Worst Songs of 2012” and you took it far too seriously, and now you want to know why certain songs aren’t on the list. That’s why you’re here right? Well then, hopefully the answer you’re looking for is here.

 

Psy – Gangnam Style

To be honest, I don’t know if the lyrics to “Gangnam Style” are stupid, because I don’t understand Korean. If you look at the Korean to English translations, they seem a little odd, but literal translations from most languages to other languages don’t make any sense. I can only imagine what a song like “Black & Yellow” translates to in Korean, and how little sense it makes to Koreans (not that it makes a ton of sense here either). Including foreign songs just leaves me open to three things:

1. Being called a racist (though I’m used to it, because people are morons and don’t know what that word means)

2. Being told I don’t understand what the fuck I’m talking about (and in this case, they’d potentially be right, my knowledge of Koreans is that they’re crazy about Starcraft and films about brutal revenge, that’s pretty much it)

3. Being criticized for not talking about other foreign songs (and rightfully so, the second I include one K-Pop song, I guess I need to review them all, as well as J-Pop songs, songs from Europe, Africa, South America, Latin America… and I have no intentions of doing that)

Gangnam Style isn’t hated because of any of the lyrics (because no one knows what he’s saying) or the music (it’s pretty standard pop/dance stuff), it’s hated because it was a viral video that became very overplayed everywhere. If you had to hear the same Mozart song 6 times a day, 7 days a week, for 3 months, you’d be pretty fucking sick of it too. Actual Koreans and people that are into K-Pop tell me that the song is making fun of “swag” and people pretending to act rich, ripping on people that think they’re better than others when they are clearly fakes. Seems like a pretty good message to me.

 

Double Take – Hot Problems, Nicole Westbrook – It’s Thanksgiving, or any other “viral” sensation.

The full title of my video should really be “The Ten Worst Songs of 2012 That Were Made by Professional Recording Artists and That Charted on Billboard”, but that’s too long, and should be implied anyway. I mentioned in last year’s “what not to expect” post, when I omitted Rebecca Black’s “Friday” that I won’t ever include viral videos made by some nobody that became famous. If I included even one of these songs, that means my list really should be just me cutting up a bunch of amateurs on YouTube… wannabe rappers, emo garage bands, girls who can’t sing covering pop artists… and I’d look like a bully, and the list wouldn’t be entertaining at all because no one would know who any of these people are. I also believe that no matter what, bad songs that have charted are automatically worse than anything else, because far more people are exposed to them and their shitty messages. Some kid horribly singing about Thanksgiving will never be worse than a song that gets airplay on MTV, radio stations across the country, in malls, at sporting events, and everywhere else, advocating whoring it up, drug use, and being an irresponsible piece of shit. YOLO though, right?

 

Any song I’ve already done a “Musical Autopsy” for

Last year this was a rule. This year, I broke the rule. Here’s the problem… in 2011, I did 4 musical autopsies, and one was of a song from 2010 that I had already included on that year’s list, so I only had to worry about 3 songs. Because the feature became so popular, I did more in 2012… 6 artists and I believe 7 qualifying songs were “autopsied”. So… there’s a little overlap (I won’t say which one(s) if you haven’t seen the video yet). Regardless, if it was in a Musical Autopsy, and it didn’t make the list, consider it a runner up.

 

Any song by Blood on the Dance Floor

Who the fuck are these guys? I get so many requests to talk about BOTDF, but here’s the problem: I have more subscribers than their official YouTube channel, and many of my videos have more views than a lot of their videos. Go ahead, see for yourself, their user name is “officialbotdf”. Is your local radio station (commercial radio, not college/campus radio) actually playing these guys? If so, their music director is an idiot. Not because they’re awful (I have no idea what they sound like, I’ve honestly never heard a song by them, and I never will unless it happens organically, if they actually have a hit), but because they are nobody. Radio survives by playing hits, by pandering to the masses. If a music director put them in rotation, they’re basically saying “change the channel”. The idea behind every element on the radio, every song, every time the DJ comes on air, is to try and get you to KEEP listening to drag you through spot sets (commercials). If the DJ says “coming up after the break, we’ve got Blood on the Dance Floor”, you’re going to say “who? I’m not listening through 3 minutes of commercials for that!” and you’re going to change the channel. SO… if I put them on my list, first of all I went out of my way to listen to them (breaking another rule of my own about the list, I only include songs I heard organically, either through work, while at the gym, on the radio, or though other “offline” means), and second, I’m now bullying some nobody.

 

Any song by Lady Gaga

People love to hate Lady Gaga, and maybe this would have been her year to appear on the list… if she actually put out a song. Lady Gaga did not put out a song in 2012. Not one. Her most recent single was “Marry the Night”, released in November of 2011, which really didn’t do anything on the charts in 2012, so she doesn’t have a single song that qualifies. Sorry Gaga haters, you’ll have to wait until next year to see if she puts out a song stupid enough to crack the bottom 10.

 

Any song by Pitbull

I’ve seen a number of comments about how awful Pitbull is and how he should be on the list… First, Pitbull had 3 songs in 2012, so anyone that says “Pitbull should be the entire top 10!” is an idiot, so would 1 of his songs be on the list 4 times and 2 of them be on 3 times, or how would that work? Second, I just find him too generic to get worked up over. None of his songs in 2012 cracked the top 10, only two made the top 40, and only 1 of them was certified in the US (“Back in Time” went 3x platinum, most likely because of the tie-in with Men In Black III). If you don’t like Pitbull, that’s fine, like what you want to like, hate what you want to hate, but in my opinion there were 10 songs put out this year that were worse than the three Pitbull put out.

 

Any song that I can’t find anything funny to say about

Again, keep in mind this is all for the sake of comedy, and there’s a reason why I’m now known as the guy who does this… search “Worst Songs of 2011” on YouTube. My video has nearly 3 million views, everyone else ranges from 300 views to 40,000 views. Not to sound arrogant, but you’re not listening to this and sharing it with people because of the songs themselves, it’s what I say about them. If the list was me saying “#10 – [Insert song here] This song sucks because it’s repetitive and boring and it’s stupid… #9 – [Insert song here] I hate this song, it sucks and is annoying… #8 – [Insert song here] I didn’t like this song, it was stupid”… I’d have no fan base. You want to be entertained, and that’s not entertaining. Don’t take this list super serious, don’t say things like “Oh, this should be #4, not #6” or “why isn’t [insert your least favourite song] on the list instead of [insert some song you didn’t think was all that bad]”, just enjoy the comedy. Or don’t. Whatever.