The Worst of the Worst of the Worst: "Rude" vs. "All About That Bass"

meghan trainor comes up on the related videos if you're watching taylor swift songs on youtube, thus is more unavoidable for my personal demographic

i just watched half of rude, i am worried it will infect my youtube recommends

Brad hilarious & otm itt

"the kids still like hairspray, don't they"

Dunno, but I do! "Bass" is a kitschy trifle I've heard maybe five times total and don't hate it. I have a pretty high tolerance for this kind of stuff. Voted "Rude."

An interesting theory about Rude: there may be more to it than meets the eye. Nasri is apparently of Palestinian descent, and the video subtly suggests the father is Jewish. At 1:21, he clearly mouths "L'Chaim" while toasting his daughter's presumably Jewish suitor. At 1:41, a Jewish star is visible on the peephole of the door, and indeed, at 1:48, the father literally looks at Nasri "through" the Jewish star, as Nasri sings "I'll never get your blessing til the day I die." Israel cannot accept the Palestinian people unless they are dead. Hence the plaintive "don't you know I'm human too?"

lol sike

these two really are a pair - banal heteronormative minstrelsy that can seem overfamiliar to the point of negligibility or excruciatingly foul depending on how you approach it. "this one is like whatever, but this one feels like the end of days" and you could be talking about either

oh god they could totally record a duet

a Peter Frampton cover

it is funny how so much stuff today feels like mid-80s rehashes but these both reek of 70s schmaltz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79r_XaUU7yE

this would be a great way for them to move the sound forward, synergize their brands and celebrate the birth of damien

FWIW, I think Anaconda is far worse than either of these songs and yet it made the 77 best list.

"anaconda" is slight and protracted enough that i get its haters but for the self-awareness re: "dumb shit" alone i rank it higher

Rude has that brilliant guitar solo to save the song from critical oblivion.

that solo is truly amazing, it sounds like it was recorded direct to Garage Band through the worst filters/patches he could find.

While being inspired by the shreds videos on youtube.

I will not vote because I cannot understand how could these, admittedly mediocre-but far from awful, tracks could be the finalists in a year of piles of truly horrible songs to choose from.

banal heteronormative minstrelsy

argh, least helpful dismissal award. bad croupier, bad.

lol sorry it's not helpful

that's a neat way to complain about someone using words without denying their accuracy

well, "banal" is too subjective to quibble over. no issue there. it's the "heteronormal minstrelsy" that i find objectionable, laden as it is with the implication of moral condemnation. i don't see trainor's passing mention of "boys" as heteronormative in any but the most meaninglessly generic sense. and "minstrelsy" invokes something that has no clear place in this discussion, only fouls the well.

but that's just me.

i understand if your brain did a tire screech after those words but i followed them with that can seem overfamiliar to the point of negligibility to acknowledge that their offensiveness on those level is subjective, but that the raw igredients are there in a white reggae song about the denial of dowry and a boogie about how boys will still fuck you if you have da booty-booty da booty-booty

i'd almost sympathize with the idea that dropping those words will likely lead to a thread derailment, but not if you're the first one to call them out

really i can only care so much about the message of either of these songs

i apologize for thinking the word "negligible" would keep people from thinking i'm asking for them to grab pitchforks

my intent was merely to underline how either of these songs can seem completely noxious or mere piffle, not to get knees jerkin

the "da booty-booty da booty-booty" part always makes me think of "shipoopi"

the raw igredients are there in a white reggae song about the denial of dowry and a boogie about how boys will still fuck you if you have da booty-booty da booty-booty

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 21, 2015 10:35 AM (20 minutes ago)

fair enough, wasn't looking to derail

"I'm all about that bass etc" Just the chorus hook, over and over, in unison.

This is exactly like what listening to the original song is.

"Because you know I'm all about that bass, bout that bass, no treble" *hmm thats all I've got* *better repeat it four times* *okay thats my chorus* *oh here at the end I'm out of lines* *what do I do?* *oh I'll just repeat the chorus four times!* WHICH IS ALREADY JUST THE HOOK FOUR TIMES

was just remembering some writer talking about a metaphor being so bad that it was a "single entendre"

Bass is bad but easy to laugh about/at and a lot of fun to bother people with. There's a certain glee people get from hating it. That's worth something. And Trainor voice is kind of fun to do a bad impression of. ALABADA BASS BADA BASS in the middle of a convo can get a laugh.

rude is just so joylessly hopelessly awful and offensive and there's just nothing. NOTHING. i hate it and i don't even have fun hating it. it adds nothing to anything. it just makes any 3 minutes in your life where it comes on or comes up worse.

What's worse is that a coworker of mine who I respect quite a bit but had never talked abt music with (he does mention that he used to be a musician somewhat frequently which may have been a red flag but I was dumb) recommended this band when I finally asked him about non-work stuff (and I led with "what is the last good record you listened to"). My judgement of other people's music taste has evaporated almost completely in the past 10 years or so -- like whatever the fuck you like, and really nothing's garbage to me anymore -- but for the first time in a while I had to conceal a face of utter contempt. If he had said Bass, I would've been like "haha yeah that song." But he said Rude, and I was like "...I can never talk to this guy about music again."

TL;DR Rude takes this one and it isn't even close.

I voted Bass because I get a sick sort of pleasure at how bad the guitar solo is in Rude.

ways you can get glee from "rude"

1. the guitar solo
2. singing the chorus when mildly affronted by someone
2. bringing the song up in conversations about vampire weekend

yeah 'rude' is obviously a garbage song

2. blasting it loudly from your car while driving past a college at 4:20pm

I didn't even know that 'Rude' had a guitar solo, but then every single time I've heard it, it's been on the radio in the office.

http://youtu.be/EIjbZgqDD2Y

this exists, thankfully:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb9dg1R1oPA

kind of wish they had shaved off the partial bar at the end to make it loop perfectly

maybe it's because I grew up with so much music that sounds like it, but Rude seems only passively bad while Bass is actively so. Plus, both songs will inspire imitators, and Trainor seems like she is breaking new ground for her special brand of shittiness which is worse than having to ignore yet more white guy reggae tracks.

If xhucx were in this thread I'll bet he'd agree with me that Magic! "swing harder" than Vampire Weekend

i never thought i would be the kind of guy to derail a perfectly good hate-some-songs threads to defend vampire weekend's artistry against obvious trolling but man.... these are some low blows

also: is (was) rude as ubiquitous on top40/hotAC radio in the states as it was in canada? i think i remember hearing that the guy is from canada so i always attributed its heavy rotation to cancon requirements. i remember waking up once to a 5 minute interview with him on my alarm (in a block that is usually 60 mins of nothing-but-pop-songs) and just thinking "if i were to die in my sleep why didn't it happen before i woke up to this boring fucking dude talking about how this song is about EXACTLY WHAT THE LYRICS ARE ABOUT"

"Rude" was #1 for six weeks in the US, apparently only went to #6 in Canada

'rude' is like the super polite canadian version of ice cube's 'givin up the nappy dug out'

Oh no, don't get me wrong, Vampire Weekend's lyrics are a cut above because they drip with evidence of having attended expensive liberal arts colleges

yeah, shit's obviously artisinal

i can see no ill coming from the spectre of Magic! hanging over Ezra Koenig, he might even give that calypso voice a rest

oops

anal

yeah, shit's obviously artisinal

― deliberately clunky, needlessly arty, (contenderizer)

Aaand I'll be taking that thank u!

Oh my, why are you guys comparing Ezra's voice to Rude! vocalist. Stop.