#19: LMFAO

There's been a lot of songs I've liked so far on this blog, but less of those that I don't like. Time for some of those with a respectful look at how these songs could have been made so much better. I'll cover only LMFAO at the moment because their latest two "hits" have garnered totally undeserved popular attention simply because the first hit included the word "Party" and the second was just branding. I'll elaborate later, but for now, have a listen to the most distasteful of tunes to poison my ears in the last year or so.

Unfortunately, this song wasted so much potential. It had the tune, but it fucked it into a rap and grungy house nightmare that spouts nothing except "party" and "shuffle". Hell, it's not even a good party song. Good shuffle song? If you're lucky enough, yes. Even worse is the idea that "every day I'm shuffling". Yeah, that's really sending out a positive message to the kiddies. If it were up to me I'd take out every single vocal, sample about four bars of the synth on top (and NOT the FUCKING COMPUTER BEEP - example is from ~2'24" to ~2'38") and burn everything else. Yes, the song would be four seconds long. Because four second songs are better than this monstrosity. It is the epitome of everything that house music has devolved into since around 2009. How this shit got popular, I don't know. What boggles me further is how it got popular without a vocoder, because isn't that how to make a song instantly popular these days?

To make matters worse, LMFAO followed up the pile of crap you see above with this:

Alright, that's a little unfair. This one had potential as well, but was again wasted so badly when the vocoder was actually added this time. Sounds as bad as "Hide Your Kids, Hide Your Wife" with that horrendous auto-tuning. So, what's good about the song: much the same as last time, there was a decent tune on top at the start. What do you do with a decent tune? Break it down, gently. Not with a fucking sledgehammer. Not to mention that the lyrics - which were supposed to "change the way that people view champagne" (pretentious fucks!) - are just as terrible as in their first "hit". Yes, I called it a hit, because I'd like to hit the pair repeatedly with a sledgehammer until I feel they've had enough punishment for their crimes against music humanity. But anyway, after you've broken the tune down, gently, you build a song up, playing on tension, and make it explode and release that tension you've had inside you. Otherwise what does it do? Leaves people unfulfilled and fucks their mindset up even more. You're not a good musician if you can't do that properly.

So what did I say before? Oh yes, branding. Their first single from their new album was called "Party Rock Anthem". Clearly appealing to the sixteen-to-twenty-fives who have nothing better to do than party. In other words, chumps with no eardrums. Nevertheless, the word "party" in the title hooked even people who are sensible, and forever shattered their ideas of house music too. People associated "LMFAO" with "party" and expected the same thing from them with their next single. Lo and behold, I squelched my left foot on the dog turd that is Champagne Showers. Champagne is supposed to be an expensive drink, used for celebrations and luxurious occasions. Not a fucking party. So anyway, they've bought into the shit that is Champagne Showers just because of the LMFAO name. If I produced the exact same song, nobody would know it existed and they'd all call it a pile of shit. Well, it is a pile of shit, but that's not the point.

Finally, I'd like to note that these two songs follow exactly the same pattern. An untrained ear wouldn't know the difference. Mine nearly didn't. Now, on that sour note, I'm off. I need an antidote to the poison that my ears just ingested. The antidote consists of listening to some proper music, like half the stuff I've reviewed before. If that doesn't work, I'm considering grabbing a sledgehammer and beating myself senseless until I get amnesia and forget that LMFAO even exist.