Village Voice's F2K

9!

There is so much worse shit on the list than this song, shouldn't be top 10 imho.

ok i don't hate that song. i understand how it is 'bad' but i wouldn't turn the radio off if it came on.

Except...It's not bad.

that song is awful but i know for certain there is at least one worse ashlee simpson song out there

even maura's article doesn't seem to have similar bile aimed at it compared to the 10s.

OK I'm officially lodging a protest.

i love "la la" and have actually been inspired to rediscover it b/c of that post, but i'm not going to put too much energy into defending it b/c there are at least 20 way superior ashlee songs - i'll definitely be down w/defending her as one of this decade's best artists though

Why did I know this would provoke a reflexive reaction on here.

I do not like "La La" but the opening sounds like Ministry or something so I'll take it over "L-O-V-E" or whatever

Best song on this tally so far is a contest between Ashlee and the Toby Keith (from two of the better albums of the decade, both from artists who made a couple of great ones, fwiw). But yeah, not worth expending more energy defending either here.

LLCoolJ ftw when we poll these

Quite honestly, after hearing Cosmo Jarvis for the first time I don't know if there's anything that will be revealed in the top 10 that can compete with him in terms of irredeemable awfulness, so even though I don't like this song I can't muster up a reaction stronger than "not as bad as Cosmo".

xhuxk, unless this is some sustained gag I'm not getting, can you explain why the Toby Keith song isn't ignorant, badly written, breathtakingly offensive dogshit?

There was one Ashlee Simpson song I liked a lot. This isn't it, but this isn't a bad song either. I don't get why it's on the list.

some sustained gag I'm not getting

There are some who believe this phrase could describe Chuck's entire writing career.

fyi i <3 all these ashlee songs a lot more than "la la", and her first two albums are SO classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ng7k0owgrE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMlVbU50ULY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQkZ73PVjK8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fRjLajv1Yo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-bCN2ur3pg

can you explain why the Toby Keith song isn't ignorant, badly written, breathtakingly offensive dogshit?

Nah, not here I won't. (And I've never said it wasn't ignorant or offensive, anyway; just that it's a great song.) But I've written about the guy plenty; take yr pick:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-05-13/music/please-stop-belittling-toby-keith/

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1196

There's a short Voice review of Shock 'N Y'all somewhere on the web too, but I can't find it right now.

The Toby Keith song is a totally valid artistic expression even if I find it repulsive; it is a lot easier to defend "mess with us and we'll fuck you up" sentiment than something like that godawful Darrel Worley "I am humping the dead bodies of 9/11 victims for $$$$$$" piece of trash.

There is a certain level where I will give Toby Keith a pass in that he is a guy who holds somewhat conflicting opinions; it's pretty rare to see someone stand up and self-identify as a "rah-rah-USA-number-one-love-it-or-leave-it" type who swings left on most cultural issues. It doesn't make his song any better but it does put it in a more interesting context.

It still deserves to be on this list, though, because jingoism is never a good look no matter how fascinating the person promoting it is.

xp Left out this one:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/12/trace-adkins-peaks-while-toby-keith-phones-it-in.html

i've never been in the Ashlee fanclub cru but "La La" is the one song of hers I really like. it came out around the same time "Since U Been Gone" and for a while I kind of mentally grouped those songs together and considered them more or less equal.

I am in the Ashlee fanclub cru (Lex, your dues have been outstanding for about three months now and we do revoke T-shirt privileges) and will obviously defend this song, though what I think is unfortunate about it is that it makes a lot more sense on an album in which it's followed by the non-single material, starting with "Love Makes the World Go Round" -- the album is quite mundane (in subject matter; it's about the mundane) and "La La" isn't exactly representative of Ashlee's persona as a stand-alone piece. It's a single and many of the best tracks on that album ("Love Me for Me," "Better Off," "Undiscovered") aren't, for one thing. But the ridiculousness of "La La" makes more sense to me in the context of her being a fairly ordinary person -- the "I'm singing a sexy song" conceit is (intentionally) an awkward fit, but I think the song is SUPPOSED to be pretty awkward (read: funny) -- has any other female singer ever offered to dress up like a football player to get a guy off?

has any other female singer ever offered to dress up like a football player to get a guy off

How does everyone keep misinterpreting this lyric? The line is "you can throw me like a lineman", implying that the guy is the football player in the equation and she is the person being thrown around. It's about rough sex, not costumery.

can't it be both

Wow, can't believe I have now conflated those two lines TWICE today. Since I thought I'd memorized this song! Anyway, I think the humor is in the juxtaposition -- dirt & diamonds, lineman and French maid, mile high club & back of the bus...

that's not why it makes me laugh

I wanna get you in the Georgia Dome on the 50-yard-line where the Dirty Birds kick for three

― ATLlien intruder (ludacris), September 9, 2000 4:18 PM (nine years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Also downplaying the amount of pleasure Ashlee gets out of this, since the key line in the bridge is "I can be myself tonight." I think there's a point when the tacked-on bridge is more formulaic than honestly revealing something about the rest of the song (Britney's "3" comes to mind, though she kind of undercuts her "oh hey just kidding it can just be the two of us" at the end there) but here I do think it's important.

Better articulated by another member of the fan club:

The point of “La La” is that Ashlee does feel comfortable in all of these different personas and places — the diamonds, the dirt, the tough athlete he can throw around, the French maid, the stray cat, the airplane, the bus, the boomerang that comes back to throw him as hard as he threw her, they are all Ashlee. The song isn’t about how she’ll pretend to be a bunch of things she’s not for him, it’s how she can be all the things she is with him. I mean, the bridge, for God’s sake.

does she often have sexy roleplay as a bus?

got no beef with ashlee but if that's the best defense...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raq8maAutAE

i've never been in the Ashlee fanclub cru but "La La" is the one song of hers I really like. it came out around the same time "Since U Been Gone" and for a while I kind of mentally grouped those songs together and considered them more or less equal.

― defend the indefensible: JUSTIN BIEBER, MAN (some dude), Wednesday, December 16, 2009 12:00 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah this is true for me too -- i think its a pretty good song tbh

really weird choice for this honestly -- im in no way an ashlee fanclub dude but this track is a pretty banging pop song

& ok this is lol but it sounds like "bohemian like you"

thats neither here nor there wrt quality by the way

I mean, the bridge, for God’s sake.

Ashlee's pointing to the power give-and-take in these costumes in a way that Berlin isn't (Berlin is just kind of stating them, and most of them are merely labels and not specific characters) -- I'd compare her more to Electrik Red, who also have an interesting way of dealing with submissive/dominant roles in a fairly empowering way. Cue Tim Finney who, shock, said it much better than I could:

"Electrik Red see no contradiction between slave-driving dominance ("W.F.Y.") and slavish submission ("Bed Rest"), modern female independence ("Friend Lover") and its easy loss ("So Good"), mercantile sexual consumerism ("P Is for Power") and incommensurate sexual generosity ("Devotion").

If that sounds like a criticism, it's not meant to be: Electrik Red understand that we don't know what we want even when we sound like we do; if they seem to conflate love and sex a little too freely, well, life's like that when the going's good."

That passage immediately made me think of this song.

(x-post)

I bought a Toby Keith album based on xhuxk's recommendation, back before I knew better. Then I used search on all the albums I had bought from ILM recommendations in the previous year that I felt duped about. It was like 80% xhuxk.

(many xposts)

i dont really get whats objectionable about it -- & whiney's piece isnt clearing it up for me? its objectionable bcuz wanting to do it in the back of a bus is tmi?? so why dont u feel that way about the luda song? otherwise your only criticism is that someone told her to sound like melissa etheridge which, ok, ive never listened to her so whatever

it seems like theres a lot of baggage being brought into discussions abt this based on a woman acting sexxxy that seems way over-thought both pro & con -- i dont really think ashlee is on some spinal tap style 'whats wrong wit bein sexy' type ish here. its a chick who knows what she wants & is singing about it which is a pretty standard line for a pop song to take

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daurx_aCFEI

Maybe you'd like to ask Maura instead of Whiney, since she wrote the blurb.

oh well apologies to whiney then

doesnt really change my stance on the song, tho

i assumed it was whiney since he was just talking about writing his next entry in this thread

With a backing track of compressed-to-next-week "rock" and a chorus consisting of a lot of rasp-filled "la"-ing, Simpson ticks off the ways she'll dress up in her lover's love, from diamonds to dirt. It's the sort of rock song that would have been as unlistenable had it been sung by Buckcherry's Josh Todd (whose "Crazy Bitch" it sorta anticipates, in a PG-13 way) or Nickelback's Chad Kroeger or even Luciano Pavarotti.

Here Maura seems to be saying "I cannot stand the backing music or the chorus, which I think is lazy and purile".

"It's very tongue in cheek; it can be interpreted in all different ways. It's about sexual fantasies. There's a lot of sarcasm in that song," Simpson said of "La La" shortly after Autobiography came out. (One shudders to think what sort of "sarcasm" Simpson was employing when she thought up the line about being taken in the back of a bus.)

Here Maura implies that Ashlee recorded the song without really thinking about what it was saying.

But when it comes to songs, shouldn't at least half the fun of getting to the real message be derived from the process of getting there? While I'm all for true female sexual empowerment in song, particularly during this ever-worse-for-women decade, "La La" lands in the category of sexy moments that should be saved for what I like to call "private time." (You want empowerment? It would have been kind of awesome to see her rush-cover "Suck My Left One" in the wake of the SNL incident and her less-than-charitable reception at the Orange Bowl.)

Here Maura criticizes the song's "empowerment" stance for being about the only allowable venue of female empowerment in modern pop music, namely being really slutty.

I get disagreeing with the conclusion but I don't think it's at all ambiguous as to why Maura picked the song.

8!

wait a minute

what the hell is this

wtf why did it briefly start over