I have, in the past few years developed a disgust for radio. More specifically, top 40 radio. Anything that is not satellite, or public radio (NPR, can I get an amen?), bastardizes the music industry and I hate it. I hate it more than I hate knock-off bags. More than I hate a messy kitchen countertop. Even more than I hate the sound of any of the Kardashians’ voices. Popular radio is a black eye on the music industry and a sad reflection of a simple truth: people don’t want to hear good music. They want something easy to listen to that doesn’t challenge anything they know about music.

::Climbing down from my soapbox::

Since the violating theft of my late 90s model vehicle which included a non-functional iPod adapter and a CD case full of digital purchases and irreplaceable mixes made by friends, my morning and afternoon commutes have been littered with the trash that is the Billboard top 40 (hip-hop, alternative and popular music editions). By proxy I’ve learned the lyrics to most Ke$ha and Katy Perry songs and have not changed the channel on a Nicki Minaj “tune” more than once. The music is bad. The artist is worse. And at one point or other, we’ve all found ourselves listening to some of this audio diarrhea, if you will, thinking “how did this make it into he speakers of my car and how would I explain my knowledge of all the lyrics of this song to anyone who caught me singing it?”

So I humble myself and present the first installment of “Songs you love to hate and hate to love”.

  Anything by LMFAO

Every time I hear one of their songs, I am transported back to a day when I was 40 pounds thinner, dancing under the seizure-inducing lights of a club and consuming mass quantities of whiskey gave me energy as opposed to acting like a sedative. LMFAO is best listened to under these conditions, preferably with access to designer narcotics and a limitless selection of expensive liquor that will come in handy when the song starts to command that you pound that liquor like you didn’t pay for it. Which you probably didn’t. Because if you’re smart, you played your cards right and went to the club with a friend who has a tried and true strategy of getting invited to tables, drinking more than you were invited to and casually disappearing when one of the table occupants has noticed all of their liquor is gone.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), for those who have grown out of, or have been ungraciously pushed out of, the club scene, we have the luxury to hear anyone of LMFAO’s top 40 hits in the privacy (and if you have those new soundproof windows, secrecy) of our cars and home. LMFAO’s songs are easily identifiable with the following questions: 

- Do your speakers rattle at any point during the song even though the volume is on the next to lowest setting?

- Do you feel the urge to turn up the volume to a level that not only makes your speakers rattle more but also makes your fillings loose and fall out of your mouth?

- Are more than two brands of expensive liquors named in the song?

- Are you encouraged to binge on said liquors?

- At some point in the song are you instructed to dance or shout something in that order or together?

- Does the singer(s) (you’re not sure if it’s one or two dudes yet) state more than seven times how amazing they are?

If you answered yes to most of those questions, you are listening to an LMFAO song. And you’re liking it. These two guys have capitalized on literal party anthems (they even wrote a song about it)-songs that give you confidence to dance! Let me backtrack: they’re songs that make you think that you’re dancing but everyone else sees you performing what appears to be a full body dry heave/reason to call 9-1-1. But you can only dance after you have had the commanded number of shots that will likely cause you to die of kidney failure immediately. But who cares? Because when LMFAO tells you to do it, you do it!