Barry White is dead. The Rolling Stones are ugly. Elvis Presley is a novelty techno act, and Jennifer Lopez is an idiot. Popular music, alas, isn't very sexy anymore. Ever tried boinking your lover to the sound of modern Top 40 radio? No? Me neither. I'd rather fuck to Paul Harvey.
But I don't really listen to much radio anymore, so in the interest of fairness, I decided to give the record industry a second chance. In this week's Glory Hole, I'm going to rate the sexiness (or lack thereof) of the top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100. I encourage you to join me; it's as easy as stealing mp3s!
"Baby Boy" by Beyonce (featuring Sean Paul)
Beyonce is fucking sexy as hell, but unlike certain other fucking-sexy-as-hell pop stars, she backs it up with some pretty fucking sexy music. She was a sex symbol before she was legal, helped coin the term "Bootylicious," and in her new single, Beyonce calls you baby boy and asks you to fulfill her fantasy. For God sakes, pay attention.
"Baby Boy" begins with the bang of a gong and only gets sexier from there. The beats are juicy, the hooks are sultry, and the vocal interplay between the diva and her babbling Jamaican co-star, Sean Paul, makes my thighs vibrate. I would definitely have sex to this song, if I could find a woman with enough soul to warrant it. Or if I could find a woman at all. Score one for the record industry.
The video, by the way, is also very good if you happen to enjoy masturbating.
"Stand Up" by Ludacris (featuring Shawnna)
"Stand Up" contains a very powerful message, particularly for anyone who happens to be sitting down: Ludacris is here; he's drunk; and he requests your presence on the dance floor. And by the way, he isn't taking "no" for an answer. "When I move, you move!!" he shouts, and it's impossible to tell whether that's a threat or a promise.
You can tell Ludacris is at the top of the game here because, over the course of forty seconds, he both paraphrases Jesus ("Do it now, cause tomorrow ain't promised today!") and offers to put hickies all over your chest. This is music that was made for fucking -- and possibly while fucking. Maybe I was wrong about hit radio after all.
"Holidae In" by Chingy (featuring Ludacris and Snoop Dogg)
Shortly after Ludacris gets you to stand up, he changes his mind and asks you to lie down: "Far from little, [I] make your mammary glands jiggle." The man isn't talking about dancing anymore.
Yes, Chingy is having a little get-together at the Holiday Inn, and he's invited Luda, Snoop, you and four of your friends. "What we gon' do?" asks the backup singer. "Feel on each other," says Snoop, "and sip on some Hen." Good times!
I don't know who the fuck Chingy is, but the guy knows how to throw a party. Even Ludacris is excited about it -- "For shizzle dizzle, I'm on a track with the Big Snoop Dizzle!" -- and when Ludacris gets excited, you'd better hide your vagina. This is paint-by-numbers hip-hop, but it's still sexier than anything white people are doing.
"Damn!" by YoungBloodZ (featuring Lil' Jon)
One member of YoungBloodZ's duo is named Sean Paul -- but he's not the fun-loving, dancehall dynamo Sean Paul who duets with Beyonce on "Baby Boy." This is a different Sean Paul-he's less Jamaican and more angry. "If you don't give a damn," goes the chorus, "we don't give a fuck!" It's the battle of who could care less, hip-hop-style. And they're right; when it comes to this bland-ass song, I'm a goddamn nihilist.
"Damn!" is a stellar example of what's terribly wrong with mainstream hip-hop today. The rhymes aren't sexy--they're humorless and tepid ("In tha club u gone feel it when it drop this summa / like rain we gone pour and hit u hard like thunda"), and the synthesized beats seem to have been picked out of a hat. Snoop Dogg has left phone messages that were sexier than this. You'll give neither a damn nor a fuck.
"Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down
Listening to this song forces me to ask some difficult "What if?" questions. For instance: What if I met the woman who seemed to be the love of my life, and what if, just as we were about to consummate our love, she reached for her CD player remote control and switched on this song by 3 Doors Down?
It's not a question of whether or not I'd still be able to make love to her. Obviously, I wouldn't have the ability. My penis would immediately drain itself of blood, and once it had run out of blood, it would begin to drain itself of erectile tissue and veins and skin until there was nothing left but a shallow cavity above my testicles. No, the vital question is, Could my love for her survive? And the answer is no. No, it couldn't.
"Get Low" by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz (featuring Ying Yang Twins)
Sorry to disrespect the ATL, but this kind of blows. Granted, after being forced to listen to that 3 Doors Down song, I'm just relieved to hear some black people again, whether they be from Atlanta or Cheboygen. But "Get Low" is really just a poor man's "Stand Up". Both feature choruses that order you to dance, motherfucker, or pay the consequences, and both include verses about being so crunked at a club that the owner gets pissed. But "Stand Up" is a fun and funny come-on, whereas "Get Low" is just dumb machismo. "Get low / To the window, to the wall, To the sweat drip down my balls." Uh, no thanks.
Memo to the East Side Boyz, YoungBloodZ and other rising hip-hop stars: Pluralizing your Z's really isn't that cool. It's actually sort of dumb. In fact, the only way 3 Doors Down could possibly be worse as a band would be if they were called 3 Doorz Down.
"The Way You Move" by OutKast (featuring Sleepy Brown)
See, I can't go disrespecting the ATL for long. OutKast's string of explosively sexy hits continues with Big Boi's "The Way You Move" (and Andre 3000's "Hey Ya," #13 on Billboard), which proves that even an isolated member of OutKast is sexier than all the East Side Boyz, the YoungBloodz and both Ying Yang Twins combined.
"Rain on Me" by Ashanti
Why does it always rain on me? Is it because I lied when I was 17? Or is it because I downloaded this horrible Ashanti song?
"Why Don't You and I" by Santana (featuring Chad Kroger)
Memo to Grammy voters: This is what happens when you jackasses reward Santana for collaborating with the guy from matchbox twenty. Yes, America's tragically misguided Latin guitarist has done it again, this time teaming his axe work with vocals from the guy from Nickelback. Yes, the same Nickelback who produces some of the worst music in Canada, which, Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick, is saying quite a lot.
It's very hard for me to review a song that I can barely even stand to listen to, so let's just pretend this whole fiasco never happened. Let's just pretend this song is not a hit by Santana, and instead simply a random track on the Bernie Williams guitar album. And then let's put on "Black Magic Woman" and fuck like wildebeests.
"Walked Outta Heaven" by Jagged Edge
Jagged Edge is a terrible name, sure, but regardless, it's very difficult to prepare oneself for the terribleness of Jagged Edge's music. Imagine if All 4 One grew up and joined the priesthood, and you'll have some idea of the miserable unsexiness involved in "Walked Outta Heaven."
Another blight upon the hideously disfigured face of R&B, "Walked Outta Heaven" compares the loss of a good woman to eternal damnation -- which seems a little sacrilegious, but who am I to judge? I wouldn't necessarily compare the experience of listening to this song to burning in hell, but that's because the devil is way too sexy for this garbage. Atlanta: You have a lot of explaining to do.
Final Tally: Out of these ten songs, four of them rocked my cock; three of them blocked my cock; two of them bored me; and Jagged Edge ruined my life. All things considered, it could've been worse!
In the next installment of the Glory Hole, I'll respond to the lovely reader mail I received in Re: Asses.
