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

I mean, I hate to be the one who stands up for Sublime here because it's gotten me nowhere in the past, but the song is like, definitively anti-rape.

It's also definitively terrible.

I admit it's pretty bad but c'mon, Radiohead.

That is like saying "I admit that stomping on the skulls of live kittens is a bad thing but at least it's not strolling through an empty park."

Once at karaoke I was having some good eye-contact with this girl, she seemed cool, we were digging each other's dancing - - - and then she lost her shit for her friend doing "Date Rape" and it was all over.

so many of these are karaoke staples ime

creep is so solid

solid like a bowel-movement.

the song is like, definitively anti-rape.

maybe the lyrics, but the tone of the song is pretty fucking unserious.

I mean, it's serious for ska-punk. Dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun, DUN. You can tell they mean business right there.

who doesn't a good gay panic punchline

doesn't +enjoy, that is

Let me tell you about a girl I know,
had a drink about a hour ago.
Sitting in a corner by herself, in a bar in downtown Hell.

She heard a noise and she looked through the door.
And saw a man she'd never seen before.
Light skin, light blue eyes, a double-chin and a plastic smile.
Well, her heart raced as he walked in the door
And took an empty seat next to her at the bar.
"My brand new car is parked right outside. How'd ya like to go for a ride?"
And she said."Wait a minute I have to think."
He said, "That's fine. May I please buy you a drink"
One drink turned into 3 or 4 and they left and got into his car
and they drove away someplace real far.

Now babe the time has come.
How'd ya like to have a little fun?
And she said."If we could only please be on our way, I will not run."

That's when things got out of control.
She didn't want to, he had his way.
She said, "Let's Go"
He said, "No Way!"
Come on babe it's your lucky day.
Shut your mouth, were gonna do it my way.
Come on baby don't be afraid,
if it wasn't for date rape I'd never get laid.

He finished up and he started the car
He turned around and drove back to the bar.
He said."Now baby don't be sad, in my opinion you weren't half-bad."
She picked up a rock.,threw it at the car, hit him in the head, now he's got a big scar.
Come on party people won't you listen to me.
Date Rape Story.

The next day she went to her drawer, look up her local attorney at law,
went to the phone and filed the police report and then she took the guy's ass to court.
Well, the day he stood in front of the judge he screamed, "She lies that little slut!"
The judge knew that he was full of shit and he gave him 25 years
And now his heart is filled with tears.

One night in jail it was getting late.
He was butt-raped by a large inmate, and he screamed.
But the guards paid no attention to his cries.

That's when things got out of control.
The moral of the date rape story, it does not pay to be drunk and horny.
But that's the way it had to be.
They locked him up and threw away the key.
Well, I can't take pity on men of his kind,
even though he now takes it in the behind.

But that's the way it had to be.
They locked him up and threw away the key.
Well, I can't take pity on men of his kind,
even though he now takes it in the behind.
DATE RAPE!

She didn't want to [x4]
TAKE IT!

1. Sublime - Date Rape
well this is the easiest poll ever
― Star Gentle Uterus (DJP), Wednesday, July 2, 2014 12:29 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thought this, exactly, as soon as i opened the thread

so many of these are karaoke staples ime

― dude (Lamp), Wednesday, July 2, 2014 2:47 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed, and almost always it's people who are expecting to blow everybody away by choosing this SUPER ROCK song that they'd NEVER EXPECT! I'd be pretty down with "Dead Man's Party," how'd that sneak in here?

Even though the Sublime song sounds horrid, there's no way I'm going to miss an opportunity to vote for Under the Bridge, which may be my most hated song ever.

Having no intention of ever hearing this "Date Rape" tune, I'm going with "Blister in the Sun." I really really really hate the Violent Femmes.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Team Under The Bridge here, although Date Rape is fucking abominable, if not as abominable as Tony Kiedis' vocal affectations!

dramarama? i didn't realize that song was such a perennial favorite.
this poll is gross

when I last saw Fishbone they did "Date Rape" and played it like it was big laffs, it was a huge bummer

Come on party people won't you listen to me.
Date Rape Story.

this song has no competition in this poll.

i'll cop to liking both sublime songs (total bizarreness doesn't make me like catchy posi-vibes and anti-rape songs less) but "date rape" definitely makes for an uncomfortable cherry at the top of this deeply disturbed sundae.

voting oingo boingo for being the most LA thing I have yet to understand in the slightest. can't get like 30 seconds into anything by them.

i probably like 90% of these songs at least a little, but as a whole it makes me feel like advocating curfews

i was unaware of 40% of them, including #1

being old ftw i guess

This is easily Papa Roach. on a particularly cranky day of mine, I'd vote "What I Got" simply cuz every hipster huckster sings that shit at karaoke and it's always been overrated.

But "Last Resort" was next level nonsense. Armed with only a weak facsimile of an Iron Maiden riff, a vocalist only capable of aggravating nasal staccato, and a hyperbolic pathos that was chic in nu-metal in the early 00s, this song exploded and for the life of me I could never figure out why.

Folks an hate Disturbed all they want, but David Draiman has an extremely charismatic voice that sets them apart. Papa Roach had *nothing*.

However, do not let that let us lose sight of the fact that Brad Nowell's Sublime didn't merely cross the 'mega-douche' line, they drove a Bradley tank over it and pitched a tent on the other side.

Papa Roach had *nothing*.

naw man. for one thing the song is kind of the iconic song of its type from that era, the value of "everybody" would need some solving/qualification here but, like, everybody who was hearing this kinda thing back then remembers "Last Resort" and gets hearty lols from the memory now. Beyond that, I think I've said this before, but I was working in treatment centers for kids with heavy problems then, and "Last Resort" was genuinely meaningful and valuable music to pissed-off kicked-around foster home kids back then. It was a song that spoke to them, that showed them how music could powerfully articulate what they were feeling. Sure: you and I might lol at "Suffocation! No breathing!" but I knew young dudes who heard that and went "fuck yes, that is how I feel," who sang it at the top of their lungs alone in their rooms when they were too angry to speak for themselves.

The world is full of young dudes like that, so Papa Roach, though they suck, get love from me.

When I saw the name of the poll, I thought "oh, my choice is whatever Sublime song is the highest."

"Date Rape" is an abhorrent song, but "Wrong Way" - the story of a man horndogging an underage prostitute - is considerably worse.

Always weird to me to find out "Date Rape" is actually popular in parts of the country, or liked by anybody at all. Really didn't hear it all that much then or now. It's fucking awful. Once at karaoke I was having some good eye-contact with this girl, she seemed cool, we were digging each other's dancing - - - and then she lost her shit for her friend doing "Date Rape" and it was all over.

― Doctor Casino, Wednesday, July 2, 2014 1:43 PM (1 week ago)

In Rhode Island, Sublime are on the radio constantly, especially "Doin' Time" and especially during the summer. It's agonizing. The local modern rock station even has the tendency to trot out album cuts ("Caress Me Down" being particularly popular), and the Top 40 station can't get enough of "Santeria." One of the most popular live concert bands in the state is a Sublime cover band.

Supposedly, much of Sublime's Rhode Island popularity has to do with a concert they played in April 1995 at The Ocean Mist, a popular hangout for URI kids. That show, which is apparently a well known bootleg, is something of a Sex Pistols at Manchester Trade Hall moment for the numerous and execrable ska bands that litter Southern Rhode Island.

1. Sublime - Date Rape
well this is the easiest poll ever
― Star Gentle Uterus (DJP), Wednesday, July 2, 2014 12:29 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thought this, exactly, as soon as i opened the thread

― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, July 2, 2014

thought this, exactly, before i opened the thread

no seriously i was living in LA when KROQ went all-in on sublime and there was just no doubt in my mind as soon as i saw the thread title

just fyi the other most KROQ-y tracks on there would be dramarama and oingo boingo

I wasn't exposed to date rape as much as Under The Bridge, a song that is still weirdly ubiquitous. So I'll go for this one.

I miss Dammit.

I love two of these ("Dead Man's Party" and "Blister In The Sun"), and hate only nine. Impossible not to vote for "Date Rape," though the Beasties' "Girls" has much to answer for as well. If "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)" was on this list, I'd be forced to vote for that - it is truly one of my least favorite songs by anyone, ever - but taking its absence into account, "Date Rape" it is.

whoa. fishbone actually made a music video for their cover of date rape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xgmSfiy_tY&feature=kp

When did KROQ go on the air? Curious about the two Violent Femmes tracks which are so much older (1983) than anything else here

My most hated thing on here is Linkin Park, by a mile.

I would never in a million years listen to Sublime on purpose, but I actually have gone to bat for them before on ILM. Before I said "They definitely had that amazing ability to "give their songs a zip code," to paraphrase Tom Waits. Maybe you just don't like the zip code they conjured? Where Beck or his handlers try to cram it down your throat that Beck is the "product of L.A.'s smorgasboard of multi-cultural reference points" or whatever, Sublime genuinely seemed like that - for better or for worse. All the references to men selling oranges on freeway offramps; the casual and smart use of Mexican slang and Span(gl)ish, playing with class and race in unique ways. Search "Waiting for My Ruca." That's a great song."

I think I'm about 50% full of shit there (I actually think Beck *does* do that stuff well, and I can't think of examples why I would have praised their racial/class politics), but I think they have a really organic point of view that always felt pretty un-cynical.

I saw them play once at a house party, in 1993 I think. They played a bunch of Fugazi and Black Flag and Bad Brains songs as well as their own tunes.

Also I think my favorite song on here might be "Anything, Anything." That song is a total time machine to me.

"in the end" is a jam

i grew up in vegas where the local scene is i think still about 70 percent sublime cover bands, something about the geography (proximity to california) made them part of the air, i've been to innumerable parties where some asshole with an acoustic guitar covered "caress me down," and i still like about half of the self-titled album. idk. "date rape" and "wrong way" are the worst though

I remember moving out to California in the early 2000s and hearing Anything, Anything still on the radio all the time. It was like, "oh, here is the song from the Nightmare on Elm Street karate sequence. Wonder if they'd take requests for the theme song from RAD?"

one of my best friends in high school was super into papa roach so i've heard more of them than i was even curious about, and man, if there were a band that more desperately wanted to be faith no more without the remotest capability i haven't heard them. also imo "last resort" >>>>>> "scars," probably my least favorite song that isn't "butterfly" by crazy town

Come on party people won't you listen to me.
Date Rape Story.

Also, realizing that I'm not doing Sublime any favors here, the correct lyric is "come on party people won't you listen to me - date rape stylee."

kinda have a soft spot for "Last Resort"

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.

I mean, yeah, Sublime were probably total douchebag homophobes. But I see the last verse more as more of a "what goes around comes around"/"Karma, maaan" thing than specifically out to target gay people.

of course it is homophobic but no more so than Seinfeld's "not that there's anything wrong with that"...

Thanks for going to bat against Papa Roach, Neanderthal. That's my vote. "Wrong Way" and "Caress Me Down" are just gross and both WAY worse than "Date Rape."

oh word. I don't even listen to that album. It was a profound disappointment for me as a Sublime fan and then like a three-year living nightmare as the singles rolled out and completely dominated modern rock airplay.

Also, realizing that I'm not doing Sublime any favors here, the correct lyric is "come on party people won't you listen to me - date rape stylee."

― how's life, Thursday, July 10, 2014 10:11 AM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL

naw man. for one thing the song is kind of the iconic song of its type from that era, the value of "everybody" would need some solving/qualification here but, like, everybody who was hearing this kinda thing back then remembers "Last Resort" and gets hearty lols from the memory now. Beyond that, I think I've said this before, but I was working in treatment centers for kids with heavy problems then, and "Last Resort" was genuinely meaningful and valuable music to pissed-off kicked-around foster home kids back then. It was a song that spoke to them, that showed them how music could powerfully articulate what they were feeling. Sure: you and I might lol at "Suffocation! No breathing!" but I knew young dudes who heard that and went "fuck yes, that is how I feel," who sang it at the top of their lungs alone in their rooms when they were too angry to speak for themselves.

The world is full of young dudes like that, so Papa Roach, though they suck, get love from me.

― Now I Am Become Dracula (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, 9 July 2014 21:33 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is a fair point, and perhaps my earlier post would have been made better had I said they had nothing *for me* specifically. But I don't want to diminish the value it held for some of those aforementioned kids.

Jacoby Shaddicks of Roach once showed up in #metal on DALnet around 2001 one night. he lasted five minutes, unable to withstand the barrage of "POSEUR!!!" insults.

while I agree with croupier's assessment upthread, the other problematic line in "Date Rape" is 'the moral of the date rape story is it does not pay to be drunk and horny'... which, besides greatly oversimplifying the root case of rape (I know, 3 minute song etc etc) is basically like saying 'hey man, don't get drunk when you're horny, you might accidentally rape someone and go to jail'. Rather than 'hey, the moral is that rape because it is abhorrent, violent, sociopathic behavior'.

*root CAUSE

also remove the "because it" from the last sentence ugh

I worked on a movie crew with a guy - I think he was a grip - who had a misspelled Social Distortion tattoo (I think it was 'Social Disortion') and he was already probably the toughest and scariest looking guy I've ever seen in my life but the tattoo just made him extra badass. And he was really nice probably because he knew everyone knew he was a total badass.

i think 7-11s are a lot smaller than pool halls though and the dimensions are all off, most pool halls seem more narrow and deep and 7-11s are more square shaped. idk, seems like a lot of work.

in other news, the farms of ohio weren't literally replaced one-for-one with shopping malls, it's more that landscapes that used to be dominated by farms now contain shopping malls, as well as other car-oriented retail and standalone offices

This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daisies

Lol this 7-11 thing it's song lyrics weirdos

I fell into a
Burning ring of fire
Then they called an ambulance
To take me to the emergency room
Because I had third degrees burns

The thing is, at the point that they'd paved Paradise, it already WAS a parking lot, no further action required, except I guess to paint some lines.

unless she in fact meant "parking ramp" or "parkade"

in which case why would they need to pave it first, wouldn't they need to dig a foundation or something?

honestly the paving-&-putting-up-a-parking-lot thing has bothered me for YEARS

I feel like that song has been bait over the years for Xtian bands who want to cover or play secular music but can't find a song wholesome enough that it won't piss off their fanbase.

At a Hawaiian restaurant and Date Rape just came on lol.

Never get lei'd

Interesting account of Bean’s final morning show: https://variety.com/2019/music/news/kevin-bean-poorman-kroq-1203397135/

https://variety.com/2020/music/news/kroq-kevin-ryder-tearful-farewell-speech-radio-audio-1203538522/

Looking up some of the songs I don't recognize, I'm amazed at how many of them are completely lacking a melodic hook (Dramarama, Social Distortion) or even a chorus ("Brain Stew"). I guess they resonated with people solely on the basis of production & lyrical 'attitude'? (Cf. that recent paper on timbre as distinguishing mark for indie/alternative music)

― bernard snowy, Thursday, July 10, 2014 10:38 PM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

the fuck is this geir shit

― da croupier, Thursday, July 10, 2014 10:45 PM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink