1. "Habits" by Tove Lo. I guess it would be more accurate to say I hate how overplayed this song is. I have some good things to say about the song and especially the video. Tove Lo is really cute!!!! and the video is kind of a close up of her face as she parties all night, hooks up with men and women, and occasionally cries. She is so cute!!! and I guess I like the fact that she isn't objectified and the video seems to be from her perspective. It's hard to explain what I mean but she just looks more normal than you would expect given what's going on. Kind of the same thing for the song I guess--she just describes doing drugs, drinking, and having sex in a very straight up and detached way. There's something a little different about the lyrics.
But I can't help it, it sounds like oatmeal. It's not THAT bad, but the fact that it's constructed fine just makes it even blander. I hear it constantly despite the fact that I can't imagine anyone shrieking, "Oh my gosh I love 'Habits!'" Why is it popular? I live on a highway and usually enjoy hearing little bits of whatever everyone is listening to while they're driving by my house. Mostly it's Lorde and "All About That Bass" and "Habits" right now. And I'm just like, those first two ones are songs I can imagine people loving, and people do love them, but who loves "Habits?"
2. "If I Die Young" by the Band Perry. I have been hating on this song for three years now but never sat down to write about it. On the one hand, I find it to be a very good song aurally. I would happily listen to it if it was about something else. On the other hand, it's a woman in her twenties fantasizing about how cool it would be to die at a young age and make everyone sad. You know, she's kind of putting on this brave, self-sacrificing face about how she doesn't want her mom to cry about her and she doesn't mind that she never got to have sex. But it's not brave or self-sacrificing because she isn't actually dying, she's just fantasizing about how she can be buried in satin, roses, and a river and how PEOPLE WILL FINALLY NOTICE HER! This is like a sheltered 12-year-old's view of death and as such is just dickish ("I've had just enough time"--pretty big talk for someone who isn't actually in this situation). What's mind-boggling is that ADULTS wrote this song and no one ever went, "What the fuck is this song about? This is fucking ridiculous."
3. "The Kill" by 30 Seconds to Mars. I can top #2, I've hated this song for more than seven years even as my high school self wanted to look just like Jared Leto does in the video. This song has no hook. It has no hook. It has no hook. It has no hook. I just don't understand. It's just a guy singing. Where is the hook? Do you know what I mean? It's just Jared Leto singing these kind of flat lines and the lyrics are just filler lyrics like, "Come break me down, bury me bury me." Those are the lyrics from the ostensible chorus, which tries to sound like a chorus by having the words be really spread out and sung dramatically. I'm not a music theorist okay, but I know what a song sounds like, and this doesn't.
4. "Roar" by Katy Perry. This is possibly the song I despise most in the world and not because I think it's more popular than it deserves or something but because all the lyrics are quotes from fucking other songs and bumper stickers. I wouldn't say it's a very original song musically either, but it's the lyrics that really get to me. It's like if you were writing a song and you decided to finish the lyrics later but you never finished them.
It goes without saying that all the lyrics are cliches with nothing said in an original way ("I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath/scared to rock the boat and make a mess.../I let you push me past the breaking point," etc.) but when you get to the point of saying "I stood for nothing so I fell for everything" THAT'S LITERALLY A BUMPER STICKER.
Then in a chorus with 4 lines she paraphrases three other songs--"Eye of the Tiger," "We Are the Champions," and "I Am Woman Hear Me Roar." I'd also like to point out that "I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire" does not even make sense as a line and is just a bunch of phrases that rhyme strung together. THE MOST LAZY SONG IN THE UNIVERSE!! Then in the second verse she says "I went from zero to my own hero" WHICH IS FROM HERCULES. Now that I'm writing this, I'm like, is "Hear Me Roar" actually full of cliches and quoting other songs on purpose? It's SO over the top about it. But I never hear other people mention this! I just don't fucking get it. This song was written by FIVE PEOPLE and they couldn't come up with one original thought in the whole song.
