MY HUMPS = WORST POP SONG, EVER?

you don't want her drama
Hua and I have been having an on-going discussion in regards to just how bad the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" is. He just wrote a piece on the song for Slate that ran today. Here are some of the highlights:

• "My Humps," is one of the most popular hit singles in history. It is also proof that a song can be so bad as to veer toward evil."
  
• "My Humps" is a moment that reminds us that categories such as "good" and "bad" still matter. Relativism be damned! There are bad songs that offend our sensibilities but can still be enjoyed, and then there are the songs that are just really bad—transcendentally bad, objectively bad."
  
• "The Peas' call-and-response courtship fails to titillate—in fact, it's enough to convince one to never, ever ogle again. The "humps" in question belong to Fergie, who brandishes her "lovely lady lumps" for the purpose of procuring various gifts from men who, one would assume, find the prospect of "lumps" very exciting—one lump begetting another lump, if you will."
  
• "It's a song that tries to evoke a coquettish nudge and wink, but head-butts and bloodies the target instead. It isolates sectors of the female anatomy that obsessive young men have been inventing language for since their skulls fused, and yet it emerges only with "humps" and "lumps"—at least "Milkshake" sounded delicious."

Where Hua and I diverge is over whether the song is "Awesomely Bad" or, as Hua argues, "Horrifically Bad," and he's firmly in the latter camp whereas I'm still willing to redeem the song in the former, but only ever-so slightly.

The way I see it, "My Humps" is one of the most spectacular train wrecks of truly bad ideas ever assembled into a single song. In fact, I think "My Humps" is proof of intelligent design because there's no way so many craptastic elements could ever randomly come together like this: you got the beat, you got Fergie's lyrics, you got the chorus, you got Will.I.Am's call and Fergie's responses. This is the musical equivalent to a perfect storm. Rather than subject the song to merciless derision, I think we need to admire how exquisitely terrible it is.

Seriously, lines like these could only be the result of a God-given gift curse for songwriting:

"Mix your milk with my cocoa puff." (Ayo! Jungle fever alert!)

"You don't want no drama/No no drama no no no no drama." (Get it? She doesn't want no drama.)

"Whatcha gonna do with all that breast/All that breast inside that shirt." (The latter line is pure genius. Except here, by "genius," I mean "the opposite of genius.")

It's not like I'm going out of my way to pick on the song: I really do think this song is a remarkable creation. "Laffy Taffy" comes in second, but by a country mile.

And here's the thing: I would totally dance to this at a club. And so would you. Admit it.

--O.W.