Whatcha gonna do with all that ass ?
For those of you too lazy to read the linked articles, they’re both a bit of hand-wringing over how bad the song actually is. Hua Hsu, in Slate, stays fairly level-headed – aside from stating that “My Humps” is “proof that a song can be so bad as to veer toward evil”. Clayton Purdom, on the other hand, employs hyperbole in generous amounts; he refers to the song as a “soulless fucking godawful piss-chugging fetus-eating abomination” at one point. No argument there, but how does that differentiate it from the rest of the top 40? Maybe I just don't listen to enough pop to make the distinction, but I honestly don't hear much difference between "My Humps" and anything I've seen while channel-surfing past MTV recently. (I don’t even bother with the radio anymore.) As far as I can see, “My Humps” is hip-pop (note the p there) distilled: no melody to speak of, and minimal instrumentation. There’s really not much new here, aside from the regrettable neologism “lady lumps”; the party responsible for that little turd of a phrase deserves a smack in the head with a red-hot shovel. Everything else is just business as usual, even if it is taken to new levels of stupid. In that light, the whole “hell in a handbasket” thing on the part of Hsu and Purdom seems a bit disingenuous. I’m not saying they should close their eyes and think of England, but for anyone who’s been paying any attention at all, “My Humps” is just another point on the long downward curve of pop culture. Pop is crap, by and large, and always has been. Sometimes pop can transcend its crappy nature, and sometimes it wallows in it. We seem to be in a time of wallowing. Have the depths been plumbed now? According to the original two pieces, the answer is a resounding “yes”. I have found, however, that once the bottom of the barrel has been scraped, there’s usually plenty of matter left in the dirt underneath. And let’s not forget that, for whatever unfathomable reason there might be, a large number of people actually like the song – according to Hsu, “it is widely believed to be the most successful unsolicited single in history, and, as of this writing, it is the most-downloaded song in the country. The Peas achieved all this without releasing a single. Instead, file sharers and intrepid radio programmers were the ones who more or less discovered the song and pushed it toward hit status, eventually forcing the label to respond with a proper single release”. It might be an utter waste of time, money, and the human spirit, but it’s not going away any time soon. My advice is to build yourself a protective igloo of contempt and booze. Together, we’ll weather this shitstorm just fine. Posted by bmarkey at 01:21 AM
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Reviewing the Reviewers
Wow. I think I agree with you that it's not the worst pop song in history--"(We Like) The Cars That Go Boom" might be a better candidate--but you're ignoring what's the most disturbing element of this morality tale: If it's file sharers who made this abomination popular, then shouldn't we be really, really worried about the collective musical taste (not to mention intellect) of this country?
Ah, I'm being disingenuous, though. I have no doubt that "My Humps" is just another example of the power of payola and Hitler's microphone.
Posted by: dana at December 8, 2005 09:35 AMthat is one hideous song. i can only hope that the people who like this are the same people who like nickelback. otherwise, i have to admit that there might be two distinct subsets of retards.
but i'm being disingenuous too. if it weren't for the retards and their terrible taste, how would i know how much smarter and better i am? dammit, i'm getting sucked into that whole superiority shame spiral thing again...
Posted by: reeves at December 8, 2005 12:13 PMand there's no way this is a joke? i mean, yeesh. i'd rather listen to mariah carey, or a broken theremin.
Posted by: reeves at December 8, 2005 12:18 PMWhy do I get the feeling that I'm gonna end up regretting the use of the word "disingenuous"?
I just found it odd that this particular piece of awful pop was being labelled as the downfall of western civilization (and that's a light gloss on Purdom). "My Humps" epitomizes the fact that pop is especially shitty and shllow these days. It's where hip-pop has been headed all along. The, uh, disingenuity I'm seeing comes from critics chest-deep in a river of sewage suddenly complaining about the smell of one particular turd.
Next up, we'll discuss my apparent fecal fixation.
Yeah, it's entirely possible that the whole thing is a joke, from the song through to the response to it. It's pretty obvious that the CMG piece was intended as humor. It's ham-fisted humor, but that's no crime. And I've heard the theory that the song itself is just a post-modern goof. If that's the case (and I'm not saying it's not), Black Eyed Peas are laughing all the way to the bank.
Posted by: bmarkey at December 8, 2005 12:58 PMi think you're definitely right about the disingenuousness of those critics bashing this song for sucking. i mean, where have they been? it's not appreciably worse than most of the other stuff out there. but it is bad enough to make me wonder if it couldn't be a joke. but at least it's so bad that it's not even catchy enough to get stuck in my head, unlike the constant stream of awful michael jackson songs i'm always humming involuntarily. damn the king of pop! damn him to hell!
Posted by: reeves at December 8, 2005 01:15 PMIt sounds like burning.
Posted by: jpoulos at December 10, 2005 11:43 AMNo, you're right: It's just Another Bad Song, and nothing about which to get one's lovely lady lumps in an uproar.
I started wondering: Is there a Crazy Frog version? That, perhaps, is the key to "My Humps'" success. It's bad enough that it's only tolerable when winnowed down to ringtone-length. Phones are supposed to make horrible sounds; otherwise you enjoy not answering them a little too much.
If Bon Jovi's "Always" didn't cast us into a pit of neverending hellfire, nothing ever will.
Posted by: J at December 11, 2005 12:24 PM