Worst song on KROQ's 25 Most Requested Songs of All-Time (2006)

da croupier otm about "date rape" hitting a nerve in that cultural milieu, which just makes it sadder imo. like, you have one of the smarter bands in its class willing to address the subject in a song and the thesis isn't, rage-filled misogyny sucks let's imagine or do something different, it's be more careful about your rage-filled misogyny or else you'll get fucked in the ass / fall a notch or two in the grand constellation of patriarchy. i doubt sublime were / are explicitly homophobic or hateful, but getting butt-fucked in jail is depressingly standard, universally accepted shorthand for "losing your manhood." that concept doesn't turn on homophobia so much as it turns on its root, patriarchy. the girl in the song actually exists as a sympathetic character, which is probably why the girl at karaoke likes it, but instead of turning on any new insights about what "date rape" actually means for the victims or the poisonous culture that perpetrates and then condemns it, it just slots it in as one of the "thou shalt nots" in the newly equal-rights-y and litigious bro code. but then, what else to expect from sublime, who are basically the poet laureates of this particular flavor of SoCal patriarchal culture, enlightened, chill, into cool shit, acknowledging rape as a statutory offense, possibly leading to butt-rape in prison (how progressive!).

anyway the good Orgy song was "Stitches"

man sublime are one of the worst bands ever

was gonna say, would be a little odd for sublime to call out "abhorrent, violent, sociopathic behavior" on principle or offer fresh insight considering their other songs

def don't think anybody has to love the song, i just don't get the "obv this is the worst thing" when it's surrounded by umpteen heartfelt odes to blue balls and being a muthafuckin' reject psyyyycho

in this context "date rape" is a goddamn psa

Oh yea Dynamite Hack woulda walked this. Fuck them imo

true xp

So glad I was not aware of that track before just now...gross

there are times when "here is a glib take on a serious subject" works; IMO "Date Rape" is not one of those times

def don't think anybody has to love the song, i just don't get the "obv this is the worst thing" when it's surrounded by umpteen heartfelt odes to blue balls and being a muthafuckin' reject psyyyycho

― da croupier, Thursday, July 10, 2014

it's not just that it's the worst, although it is. it's that it's the worst AND the most requested and if you lived in LA in the mid 90s you heard it hourly and supposedly right-thinking people around you acted like it was not a glib take on a serious subject but important.

Two Joints also terrible

yeah i totally can't imagine this song as inescapable (think i first heard about it in an article about the spur posse in Rolling Stone, saw the video on 120 minutes a couple times and bought a 20th Century Masters disc of the band - wound up keeping like half the tracks) and can totally imagine how quickly social context can turn it into the worst thing ever

KROQ was on a holy mission to make Sublime the biggest thing ever. SoCal's answer to Seattle or something.

omg spur posse

Voted for the same shit as everyone. "Last Resort" is dumb but it's hard to deny that chorus.

i kind of assumed Sublime was like the Minutemen for meatheads or something

cut my life into pizzas

i kind of figured sublime was like jimmy buffett for people too young to own a boat

Sublime is like an infected toe fungus

only song in the top 25 i'd never even heard OF before seeing this thread is Offspring's "Bad Habit." Apparently it was the 4th radio single but i only remember the first 3.

gonna go check lyricwiki and find out if habit rhymes with "grab it"

sublime was the one of these i really wasn't ok with even back when i listened to all this stuff on the radio, regularly, by choice

it doesn't, habit only rhymes with habit.

the song's about killing bad drivers apparently

Drivers are rude
Such attitudes
But when I show my piece
Complaints cease, something's odd
I feel like I'm God
You stupid dumb-shit god-damn motherfucker!

such attitudes.

12-year-old me thought that was the most badass lyric ever. And it was among the five albums I owned in total.

lol, minutemen vs. sublime is so good twin vs. evil twin.

so like, a year or two after the "cop killer" brouhaha kroq was regularly playing a song about killing people on the freeway and i'm hearing about 20 years later

12-year-old me thought that was the most badass lyric ever. And it was among the five albums I owned in total.

same here. kinda think it's still undeniable idk

i knew that line via teen osmosis but never knew the song nor it's 'meaning' ha

its just one of those days

xxxpost wait til you hear about "pumped up kicks" in 2030

I have to vote for Last Resort as I don't think I've even listened to that sublime song. It's weird that it's not only their most requested song (what i got and santeria
I'd assume are their most popular tracks) but that it's the most requested song of all time.
Seems to me like someone from 4chan or a group of organized trolls decided it would be funny to request Date Rape every day.

Drivers are rude
Such attitudes
But when I show my piece
Complaints cease, something's odd
I feel like I'm God
You stupid dumb-shit god-damn motherfucker!

― da croupier, Thursday, July 10, 2014 11:38 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

such attitudes.

― goole, Thursday, July 10, 2014 11:39 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

12-year-old me thought that was the most badass lyric ever. And it was among the five albums I owned in total.

― skip, Thursday, July 10, 2014 11:39 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I believe I got in trouble for playing this song on the stereo during high school art class.

ha i know and love "pumped up kicks", though yeah, i'm kind of amazed it achieved the degree of play and lack of controversy it did

to be fair to the hoi polloi i don't think i grasped the lyrical content of kicks until the song was already in the top 10

Drivers are rude
Such attitudes
But when I show my piece
Complaints cease, something's odd
I feel like I'm God
You stupid dumb-shit god-damn motherfucker!

this is like an Eagles verse stripped of social niceties

Seems to me like someone from 4chan or a group of organized trolls decided it would be funny to request Date Rape every day.

― Moka, Thursday, 10 July 2014

4chan didn't even exist then.

xp 'helena beat' was like the exact same song structurally with a bigger hook so i'm surprised it wasn't that one that was bigger if the lyrics dont have anything to do with it

so wait no one's gonna pick The Smiths?

"how soon is now" for worst? gtfo

that smiths song is kind of a jam isn't it

unless i'm thinking of the wrong one

I assumed by now someone would have

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I'm probably voting for "Just a Girl" because their watery ska punk + her voice made late nineties radio unbearable.

is there a lex of American modern rock? Kinda thinking he'd love No Doubt and hate The Smiths.

"self-esteem," "gotta get away" and "come out and play" were modern rock top tens while "bad habit" didn't chart anywhere so i have to assume it was only popular on kroq and a couple like-minded morning zoos

and the tape decks of 12 year olds, obv

any Dramarama lovers here?

are there any Dramarama lovers on the board tonight? get them up against the wall

(sorry)

i can totally understand people squirming at the glibness of "date rape" - as I said, I dunno how I feel about it being the no. 1 KROQ call-in jam, esp when Sublime clearly weren't worried about indulging in homophobic pandering in the last verse.

But it's a matter-of-fact acknowledgement that date rape exists, is about power and opportunity (last verse underscores that), and is fucking bullshit, in a genre chock full of mouth-foaming misogyny and objectification (rest of list underscores that).

Not saying you have to play it at your wedding, not saying that watching a room of dudes hoot and holler over it isn't gross. Just pointing out why that girl at karaoke may not think it's the worst thing ever.

― da croupier, Thursday, July 10, 2014 10:29 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is fair up to a point, but it's sorta giving them too much of a free pass: congratulations, you wrote a song that in some way attaches negativity to something people should be writing other, better and more nuanced songs about. Neanderthal and mattresslessness OTM about its bogus ethical universe. Also the worst consequence of date rape is A DUDE WILL SEX YOU, it's just really high school junior level of dealing with the material. I 0000000000000000000000feel okay writing off the girl at karaoke, not because she relates to the song, but because she is stoked to hear Sublime at karaoke, as if this is some sort of unprecedented wonder.

Thinking about "Girls" and the request line - I mean, I know that people frequently request songs that are often played anyway, but it's maybe SORT of the case that this list does reflect the fact that, say, they were going to play Sabotage and Fight For Your Right anyway, and people calling in for Girls felt they were aiming for a relative 'deep cut.'

The expanded list looks a lot better than 1-25 IMO. I mean "Boyz N the Hood" is awful but kind of forgettably background despite the dumbass premise of the whole operation. I mean if you don't realize it's "we're doing a funky bro summer jam cover of a rap song!" it's just kind of a melodic beige, like a less-good "The Hooch." Feel like the top finishers here are all kind of sonically attention-seeky. Also "Chop Suey" rules and I similarly cannot shake my teenage impressedness at STUPID DUMB SHIT GOD DAMNED MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!. Would rather hear "Bad Habit" than any of their other hits probably.

I'm weirdly kind of won over by the defenses of Last Resort. I once tried to lobby for Broken Home on similar grounds, but the internet crashed and I lost the post. lol at ciderpress's reading in any case.