Katuwapitiya

I am someone who really places a lot of importance on lyrics. To some, especially in certain genres, they can be an afterthought. Being someone who thinks he can write decently sometimes, I just can’t forgive laziness when it comes to that aspect of music. How can a band be fine with a beautiful instrumental arrangement ruined by some ridiculous rhyming couplet? I’ll never know.

Now I know some people will say that it is unfair to take lyrics out of context. I disagree. Here are the nine worst lyrics that I came across in 2009:

9. “I got a bollywood chick, she says she wanna know what Hollywood is”- Swollen Members in Bollywood Chick

8. “I’m nodding my head like Yeah!
Moving my hips like Yeah!”- Miley Cyrus in Party in The USA

7. “She get it pop it, lock it, drop it,
That birthday cake”- Sean Kingston in Fire Burning
(I don’t think Sean Kingston should be singing about cake.)

6. “A domesticated girl that’s all you ask of me,
Darling it is no joke, this is lycanthropy.”- Shakira in She Wolf

5. “I can transform ya, like a transforma”- Lil Wayne in I Can Transform Ya.
(Lil Wayne produces quite a few quoteables but this one was probably his worst.)

4. “Though I’ve been too weak to escape
And I don’t have the strength to pluck a grape”- The Tragically Hip’s Love is a First

3. “I go ooh ooh, you go ah ah lalalalalalalala
I can’t lie lie lie lie lie lie
I wanna wanna wanna get get get what I want
Don’t stop
Give me give me give me what you got got”- The Veronicas’ Untouched
(The Veronicas ruin what is actually a pretty decent pop instrumental with random gibberish. This song came out a while ago but only really gained popularity this past year.)

2.“Duel it, duel it, duel it, juggle it, duel it, duel it”- Phoenix’s Lisztomania
(When I first heard this line, I thought that he was saying “too late chocolate”. The actual lyric is not much better. Seriously, does anyone listen to what Thomas Mars is actually singing?)

1. “‘Cause I’d get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance”- Owl City’s Fireflies
(Screw you Owl City. If I wanted to hear an empty unsubstantial version of the Postal Service, I’d listen to Deathcab.)

If you look at the top, you’ll see some categories that I set out when I started this site, “The Music I Love” and “The Music I Hate” being the main ones. I wanted to alternate the love and hate but lately, I’ve just been sticking to the love. But I can remain silent no longer. Thanks to someone having 104.5 CHUM FM blasting in the morning, I heard a song that makes the lyrics of “Tonight’s Going to Be A Good Night” seem like the words of Walt Whitman in comparison.

The song is Party in The USA by Miley Cyrus.

And yes, it’s a given that I should hate the music of Miley Cyrus but someone has to say something. This video 2 million views in 4 days and it can’t just be due to the short shorts that she’s rocking in the video. Generic can’t even being to describe the music in the background, simple guitars and weak percussion, there’s nothing new here. What is new is the auto-tune that she’s using on her voice. Autotune! Miley Cyrus! I didn’t think it could get worse! But wait, let’s pick out some good lines:

“This is all so crazy, everyone seems so famous”

“That’s when the taxi man turned on the radio,
and a Jay Z song was on,
and the Jay Z song was on,
and the Jay Z song was on,
So I put my hands up,
They’re playing my song”
(I’m sure that’s what he was going for when he released Death of Autotune, lol. She later does the same verse structure with “a Britney song”.)

“Get to the club in my taxi cab
Everybody’s looking at me now
Like “Who’s that chick, That’s rocking kicks?
She gotta be from out of town”
(Apparently, the rest of the crowd in Hollywood has decided to party barefoot style.)

“Feel like hopping on a flight (on a flight)
Back to my hometown tonight (town tonight)
Something stops me every time (every time)
The DJ plays my song and I feel alright”
(Good to see how much home and family means to a 17 year old.)

“Nodding my head like yeah
Moving my hips like yeah”

Overall, equating Jay-Z and Britney is a ballsy move on Miley’s songwriter’s behalf. But how exactly can one “move their hips like yeah”? (besides this). I never thought I could hear a song that would make me recall the good ole days of an S Club Party. It’s sad because pop music was doing pretty well with things that didn’t really annoy me (Pink, Taylor Swift, it was what it was.) But Miley, this is too much. Congratulations, Party in The USA!!!1, you are hated.

Watch below and see if I’m exaggerating:

Edit (Jan 14): It looks like I’m getting a lot of traffic re: Miley’s autotuned vocals. It’s clear that her vocals are heavily edited in the original studio version. With that said, the recent video that has been posted of her performance on the Today show is fake. I’d love to pretend it was real but here is the fake, followed by the original:

The fake one:

The real one (still sounds bad to me haha):

Hope that clears things up!

While you’re here, you can also check out this awesome (exclusive to this blog) video of Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock performing with Broken Social Scene in Toronto: