So. Um, what's it sound like?

Horrible, horrible, terrible song.

Horrible.

To simply note that this track (I’ll not call it a song, for reasons elaborated later) is a soulless fucking godawful piss-chugging fetus-eating abomination is too little, too late.

As to what it sounds like: If you do not know, consider yourself lucky, for you still have that piece of your soul intact that I no longer do.

Well, it's just that "soulless fucking godawful piss-chugging fetus-eating abomination" covers so much ground. That's pretty much the top 40, isn't it?

You know, ever since I heard that song I've been trying to come up with lyrics that I think are less arousing (without cheating and heading into cartoon violence or GWAR-type gross-outs). This is the best I could do:

Fergie: You look just like my grandpa, it makes me want to get with ya.
Will I Am: Your grandpa's booty is excellent, so I'll take that as a compliment.

Fergie: Help me off with my 18-hour bra, my 18-hour bra.
Will I Am: But I haven't clipped my nails...my horny, yellow nails.

Will I Am: Do your lumps hang low, can you swing them to and fro?
Fergie: I can tie them in a knot, I can tie them in a bow.

No, I don't think I'll ever manage it.

Melissa may, that is hilarious. Okay, now I have to hear it. Anybody wanna fess up to having something they could YSI? (I'm not giving iTunes a buck for what will likely scar me for life.)

Things I still wish for:

something which could go back in time and prevent my ears from ever hearing the words *my humps* or *lovely lady-lumps*
posted by MightyNez 18 November | 22:55

While I enjoyed the sentiment of the author, the damage from this evil thing had moved from my consciousness until now. Damn you!

Yeah... that's a pretty asstastically bad song. Which is a shame, because I like me some BEP.

I've never heard this song.
I think I should probably be grateful.
This one's kinda fun too.

I have never heard this song, but the review is a work of art.

bmarkey, I don't have it, but give me five minutes. *opens agent newsreader*

That was easy. I tried to listen to it after I downloaded it. I ended up skipping through it to see if it was just more of the same. It was. Anyway.

get you drunk off my hump (or whatever the fuck she said)

Well, I'm about halfway through it...

I'm amazed that anyone thought it was a good idea to release it. That said, I've certainly heard worse, too. Yeah, it sucks, but no more than most popular stuff. *shrugs* I dunno. Maybe it'll hit me when I'm more awake.

I will say this: "lovely lady lumps" has got to be the worst description of a woman's body since "junk in the trunk". Both are employed here.

Thanks, weretable. Now I don't have to die of curiosity. Boredom is still a danger, though.

I'm pretty sure that the song is, in fact entirely sarcastic.

Let me elaborate.

I've heard the song a couple of times on the radio, first not realizing that it was the Black-Eyed Peas. It really doesn't much like a BEP song at all, the music has a totally different feel, very 'sparse' and repetitive like a lot of (boring) popular hip-hop. Most Black Eyed Peas songs have a much more layered, rich sound. Their lyrics are usually pretty inane, but the beats are very listenable.

On the other hand, the Black-Eyed-Peas are the biggest sell-out-band in the world. Most people know who they are not because their music is all that great, but because they appear in so many commercials, so it's safe to say that they don't particularly care about their music or their 'image' as artists all that much.

So my guess is that the song is either a cynical attempt to play off unsophisticated listeners or some sort of post-modern self-parodying type of thing, or a mix of the two. I mean, it's meant to be a joke, and this kind of review misses the point (or plays right into it)

For within this simple “pop song” (as many would defend this) there lies the very subversion of pop music, a depraved attempt to destroy our common cultural heritage.

WE MUST WEED OUT THESE SUBVERSIVE ELEMENTS.

Especialy if they're subverting something as important as pop music.

Jeez, weretable, you send us the 5-½ minute version. The video (use IE) clocks in @ 3:55 and that's ... plenty.

There's some disturbing home versions -- unless you're comfortable with a little ephebophilia.

This is pretty whack, though: My Robot Humps [coralized]
All work for this post done by LittleLostRobot

The interesting thing is that it surged to popularity without a single (they later released one) -- it's the first song in history to reach the Billboard top 10 without a release.

Looks like Slate has a piece on this song as well. "It is also proof that a song can be so bad as to veer toward evil."

From Slate: "My Humps" has become the standard-bearer for the direct-democracy cultural possibilities of the Internet.

Well, there goes the last shreds of my starry-eyed idealism about direct democracy and the social potential of the web.

And delmoi, you are far, far too generous. The song may be a joke, but I'm positive that it wasn't made AS a joke.

jokeefe: the public has always had cloth ears, and if they have any taste at all it's in their mouths.

Pop has always been disposable crap, since… well, forever. Sometimes it can transcend its crap nature, and sometimes it wallows in it. This seems to be one of those wallowing times.

Joke or not, I find it funny that these critics are getting all up in arms over something that, to me, sounds like hip-pop (note that p) distilled.

Well bmarkey, I think it's one of those galvanizing songs that make people think Things Have Gone Too Far, and Must Change Before More People Get Hurt.

All I can say is I heard it without being warned, so there was no hype telling me to hate it: it was just pure instinctive loathing, as for a slug trundling into my ear.

Hmmm. Ok, I can see that. I guess what puzzles me is

WARNING! GRAPHIC METAPHOR AHEAD! APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE!

why they're holding their noses over this particular musical turd when they've been chest-deep in the river of sewage for so long.

(And mm, I hope you don't think I was implying that you couldn't work out the awfulness of the song on your own. If I gave that impression, I apologise.)

Oh no, bmarkey, that's not what I thought at all. It's more that even (WARNING GRAPHIC HOO-HA) in the sea of shit that is current top 40 radio this thing is like a log from a Yeti and okay I have to stop right there before I actually hurl.

bmarkey: for me it was simply an instinctive negative rection to hearing a woman describe her body parts as "my lady lumps". *shudder* I'm actually a fan of some pretty bad pop.

I didn't mean to question the reponse of anyone here. I was just looking at the critical response; it's as if the two critics linked to in this thread are just now figuring out what hip-pop is all about, which is incredibly disingenuous on their parts. Sorry I wasn't clear.

Anything that could lead to the creation of this can't be all that bad.

And delmoi, you are far, far too generous. The song may be a joke, but I'm positive that it wasn't made AS a joke.

Why are you positive? I assume you think Gwen Stephani's "Holla Back Girl" is totally serious as well?

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

I guess what I'm saying is: That song is far to ridiculous to be taken seriously, and anyone who takes it seriously is ridiculous themselves.

Why are you positive? I assume you think Gwen Stephani's "Holla Back Girl" is totally serious as well?

There's a difference between wit and witless; between good pop and utter crap. Part of the CMG rant was that "My Humps" doesn't even work as a song, that there's no redeeming qualities to it at all: nothing engaging to do with rhythm or wordplay or melody or even just the sonic pleasure of kick-ass production. I love me some good pop music, and a good pop song can light things up for millions: I'm drunk on The Futureheads' "Area" these days, and it's a pop song, really. The problem with the Hump song is that it has nothing to redeem it in any way: no Kelis style cleverness or hooks, nothing that might make me want (even in my imagination) to get up and dance, and nothing that I can appreciate for, if nothing else, the invention of its backing tracks, like "Drop It Like It's Hot", a song I otherwise loathe. Britney Spears' "Toxic"? Who didn't secretly love it? I'll admit to it. (I liked "Hit Me Baby One More Time", as well, for what it was.)

So, um, yeah. Why this particular song, My Humps, has become a bit of a lightning rod for critical disgust can I think be attributed to its manifestation of the abolute lowest common denominator of current pop/faux hip-hop. It's really and truly awful. It makes Gwen Stefani's stuff look smart and technically accomplished and deep. And that's saying something.

Delmoi, I wasn't taking anything seriously until you stepped in with that "this must be ironic pomo commentary" analysis with which I cannot disagree strongly enough. And let's just say you're right, and it's a big ironic lark. Well, that almost makes it worse; I'd rather listen to the collected works of Jedediah Purdy as read by Leonard Nimoy than anything this soulless, whether accidentally or by design, again.

I too love pop music, and I think we're in a particularly ugly and fallow period of it, and that a song this shitty just emblemizes that particularly well. That's all. That's all that's all that's all. That's all all all all all.

I too love pop music, and I think we're in a particularly ugly and fallow period of it, and that a song this shitty just emblemizes that particularly well.

OK, that sentiment I can get behind. Because really, honestly, I don't hear much difference between "My Humps" and anything I've seen on MTV recently. (I gave up on radio a long time ago.) Now whether that says more about me than it does about the state of pop, I dunno.