Bodak Yellow is:

classic ILM tropes itt:

a) why is popular song popular?
b) why is ILM people all like exactly the same trend?
c) nobody should be that into a record because there is another record
d) i am concerned that the arbitrary values this board assigns to records will be factually inaccurate
e) everybody's taste is inauthentic except the people who share my taste

f) NV gets grouchy about people having the same empty metaphysical debates every fucking month altho clearly they enjoy it and NV should just leave them alone

anyway any fule knos that black beatles by ras sramard feat gacci mone will take it this year

I get why people like this song now but I still don’t.

I just find it so edifying when imago takes a break from listening to his allotted one Kendrick Lamar album per year to descended from the top of Mount Cardiacs to weigh in on the popular jass and ragtime sheet music of the day and finds it, well, terribly distressing in it's lack of sophistication

I've listened to every single track nominated for the EOY poll? Plenty of pop and rap to like, just seems weird how this one took off.

This is next-level. You realize that YOU YOURSELF are often the person voicing these concerns???

― the man from P.O.R.L.O.C.K. (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, December 26, 2017 8:46 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There’s a preliminary conversation that we all see the same objective reality about the shape of things that is essential in order to relate it to our subjective tastes & preferences ... Imo when it comes to rap ilx confuses the former and the latter

I don’t really care / already know imago doesn’t have any idea what’s going on in the former world as relates to rap, that he’s accidently agreed with me in the latter is a delightful bonus

e) everybody's taste is inauthentic except the people who share my taste

― a Rambo in curved air (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, December 27, 2017 5:07 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You’re projecting. I’m explaining why this is unexciting to me, not why it’s “authentically” unexciting. I hope that my rhetorical might persuade ppl to recognize some truth in their own experience of the music but ime a lot of the talk around bodak yellow, links to ppl singing it on a subway platform etc are themselves arguments abt its authenticity. (Horseshoes pt about the bloody shoes lyric is compelling, that’s a stark vivid line that immediately comes to mind)

These is bloody horseshoes

like one of these guys?

http://www.scaryforkids.com/pics/new-horse.jpg

that subway video, is that one of the 'forced sing alongs' that was mentioned upthread?

I didn't have you in mind for (e) D-40, maybe (c) a little bit ;-)

I'm divorced from a lot of the contextual stuff like internet/YouTube hype, it doesn't make my take on a tune any purer, just different

I'm definitely interested in the material and cultural context of production and reception, those kind of conversations are worth having. I skip off the bus laughing when they get tangled up with the subjective experience of listening because there are too many subjectivities for that to be a sensible intersection

Personally I don’t hate the song I am an outsider and I am genuinely interested in the context of why this song in particular became so big. Songs like “Mask Off” or “XO tour” have very recognizable hooks for a non-native english speaker (who pays attention to lyrics only half of the time and has no clue of slang and metaphors and references and whatnot used in rap) and someone who was raised on pop rather than rap, Bodak Yellow is not as immediate for me. That said I am fascinated by rap culture and this thread is somewhat enlightening to me (and yet half of it is invalidating sides and I am partially guilty for it, so sorry bout that)

i think in 10 years people will remember liking this and feel a pang of embarrassment

I feel like as the rest of the genre is retroactively canonized (as inevitably happens) it will start to feel less exceptional. The sense that it’s the only song of its kind (particularly w a female lead artist rapping over a modern rap song as opposed to whatever it is Nicki is doing) is directly tied to why ppl feel so strongly imo

yes I'm sure in 10 years I will be wracked with guilt for thinking this was a pretty fun rap song

yes I'm sure in 10 years I will be wracked with guilt for thinking this was a pretty fun rap song

in fairness upper miss ten years from today you will probably still be getting held to account on ilxor dot com for how you felt about bodak yellow, it's the nature of the game

imagine a bloody shoe
kicking a human butt forever

That subway video just kinda shows the futility of chin-stroking about the why/how of this song. It's a big ol banger and ppl like songs that bang. You can argue about what percentage of the bang factor to attribute to No Flockin' or to Cardi herself, and sure she had promotional muscle her, but the net result is still big ol banger.

promotional muscle to help her

lots of shitty songs are bangers though! why are we blind to this

are you guys still banging 'panda'? what about 'trap queen'?

Trap queen still bangs

But it wasn't a mystery why those songs were hits either, right? I guess there are two strands here, "why is this song a hit" and "is it a good song." The second one is obv way more subjective, the first one just doesn't seem that hard to figure.

People have stopped thinking about Fetty Wap entirely, but when TQ comes on at parties, people lose their shit.

So this is a thread about whether people like or dislike a song, and people seem to have very strong views one way or the other, but nobody seems to be saying why they like or dislike it, have I got this right?

if y'all wanna relitigate rockism more power to you I guess but it seems like a weird choice in 2017

if y'all wanna relitigate rockism has this ever been in question on www.ilxor.com?

whiny decided Desiigner was the Scott Walker of Migos he still cares

"Panda" and "Trap Queen" are lit.

when TQ comes on at parties, people lose their shit

It doesn't happen as often in the '10s as it did in other decades, but on occasion a song's popularity exceeds the artist. I don't see this happening with "Bodak Yellow."

i am still listening to fetty wap btw
but then i am still listening to t pain so maybe i just never learn

her voice sounds like a thumb rubbing against a balloon

how about that

also my critique about its money-moving glorification was a specific response to the over the top “MOST WOKE SONG OF 2017, WHAT A REBUKE TO TRUMPISM” reactions i saw from some pubs and writers that consider themselves politically on the “right” side. the economics don’t add up to me on that particular level for a bunch of reasons. if other songs with similar sentiments were (over)praised in similar ways i would feel similarly uncomfortable.

post malone is way worse, OBVIOUSLY. (and to tie this whole thread together i saw him open for fetty wap. he opened and closed his 30 minute set with “white iverson”). as are g-eazy and all the other mumblcore white rappers out there.

It’s a song about going to the dentist.

There's no "MOST WOKE SONG EVER" in this thread so arguing against it here seems a bit like a waste of time.

the song is fine, the thread is a lot of frustration about the music industry and music journalism, some of it unexamined (when you could splice salty reddit posts from the pitchfork AMA into a thread and have them fit right in, there's a problem) let to seep into a song that is fine.

wait how is this song supposed to be"woke"??

the "promotional muscle" argument is also a bit dubious because it tends to be deployed selectively, a convenient scapegoat for not liking a song for other reasons.

(see: the Charli XCX album, which I liked! but every single guest on that album has tons of promotional muscle behind their presence -- one of them is a Dr. Luke protegee, even! -- yet the consensus seems to be "these guests are great and defy The Algorithms telling us what to listen to." I like the guest spots a lot, but they were brought to you by major-label PR.)
(also see: the pushback to social media stars and the like making records. not to say that there isn't PR muscle there as well [although sometimes via different companies] but generally when the labels get involved it's trying to scramble to get out in front of a pre-existing fanbase.)

decent song from a decent stripper

camaraderie at arms length, i know, i’m just trying to recontextualize my comment that was floated as a dissent earlier because i’ve been getting “why don’t you say the same thing about other songs” pushback. (i do often think it! but whatever.)

the "most woke song ever" stuff I'd guess is about its accompanying blurbs on year-end lists

it is.

the most woke song of any given year is released by macklemore

lol

Things I never want to read again:

1. How “woke” a piece of music is
2. How Cardi B used to be a stripper and what that “means”

Bodak Yellow is a good song

To mention what D-40 mentioned, it's a "good" song in the same way that "This Is Why I'm Hot" or "Hot N*gga" or "All Gold Everything" or whatever is a good song, where there's nothing particularly original or life-changing or radical about it musically, but it obviously hits the right feeling of the times and is fun and everyone likes it enough. It doesn't take some "actually starland vocal band is bae" poptimism wizard magic to accept and embrace the **scorpions voice** winds of change and the Trendz of Culture that made this song hot. She's a good rapper, she has right amount of sliced dej loaf swagu, a flow that was already established by Kodak, it's fine. If Ego Trip was still putting out lists, it would get the, like, 30th-to-40th best song of the year spot reserved for shit like "Getto Jam" or "Regulate" or "Da Dip" or "Baby Got Back" or w/e. I cannot imagine the backbends you would have to do to actively DISLIKE this song

That being said, more to Katherine's point, yes, the way we write about these songs is incredibly broken. I mean, was there really a "great" song released this year? Maybe Margo Price's "Pay Gap" or Kendrick's "Humble"? But those also seemed very formalist in their approach to rebellion?

It feels like we're in that post-Sopranos/Wire era of TV where everyone just wants to believe something is the new Thriller or the new "Hey Ya" ("Migos is better than the Beatles") even though internet exploding the monoculture makes that almost a statistical improbability.

my concern about promotional muscle is not that the song is succeeding because of it, but that other artists i like more dont get the same opportunity a social media celeb will, and this tempers my 'excitement' for the success of a record by an artist conservative labels saw as a sure bet while acts which could easily be in a position of equal or greater success dont have that leg up

this is not a criticism of the song, or of the artist, but of the industry, and then by critics whose approach to music is to assume the status quo is the way it is bc the 'cream rises to the top' in some kind of poptimist natural selection

personally for me, this makes it hard to be extra super excited about this record

i mean, she says right in the the song she's making money moves

chris' post is good also although the last line i'd have to think abt how much i agree with

I mean, also, regarding the industry machine, it is really ... interesting... that the same culture of "no filter social media celebrity" spawned both this critically acclaimed number one song and the least popular president of all time