Shea Serrano[Editor's note: Why This Song Sucks determines why particular tracks blow using science. It appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday.]
Song: Rick James' “Super Freak”
History: This was the song that Bobby Flynn performed on Australian Idol 4! Also, Rick James sang it in 1981.
p.s. HOLY FUCK, how is it that in all of the words that have been written online, nobody has realized that Rick James and 2 Chainz are the same person?
They're both thin, funky, have weird teeth, long hair, eccentric clothes, prefer woman with a hint of gutter to them, enjoy drugs, etc. 2 Chainz was even on a 2011 Young Jeezy song called “Supa Freak.” It's been right there for you all this time. You're really fucking up, Internet People. #2Jamez
Atmospherics: Sounds like hahaha; sounds like rubbery bass lines; sounds like Count Dracula-ish — spooktacular, one might say.
Scientific Analysis: I built a boat one time. We were at the lake for this family trip and two of my cousins and I put it together. We gathered thick branches and some empty two liter soda bottles and even packed an overnight bag (we were gonna row that thing clean across the lake to the nicer side where all of the rich people lived; all of their attractive daughters were no doubt going to be impressed by our garbage raft). It looked cool and it was fun to think about and people smiled when they realized what we were doing. It was aces. But then we got on there. And the whole world turned to shit. We might as well have built that thing out of crackers. It just crumbled underneath us.
That's basically what “Super Freak” is. It looks like it works, and it makes people happy when it comes on, but it's not carrying you anywhere you want to go — unless where you want to go is the bottom of a lake, in which case, yeah, it's carrying you there like a motherfucker.
Sure, he lays out a pretty sturdy blueprint for determining whether or not your bird is a super freak (bird is slang for girlfriend, I learned recently). But beyond that, it flounders, absent of anything more substantial than James' gloating libido.
Some might say, “But if this song isn't valid, how has it survived this long without scientifically invalidated by anyone?” Admittedly, this was a bit difficult for me to understand. But then I watched the video twelve times and it all made sense: the glitter.
Rick's use of glitter has thwarted lab professors and musicologists from pinning down and labeling the absurdity of this song for quite some time. Glitter is the ultimate look-the-other-way. It's just about the best thing of all, really. It can add razzmatazz to all sorts of things. Like, I'm saying, if the wife and I have an anniversary or Valentine's Day or whatever is coming up, I might sprinkle a bit on my penis. It's just a nice surprise, is all. I mean, have you ever even see a non-glittered up man unit? That shit is not the move. They're gross looking.
But add a little glitter, and it's all, “Well, how do you do?” all classy and shit. It's amazing. If someone made a porno version of Twilight (Bi-light, perhaps?), it's guaranteed they're making sure that Edward Cullen's penis sparkles. Besides, nobody outruns science forever. Science is like the goddamn Jason Voorhees. You can hide for a bit, and that maybe makes for a more compelling story, but eventually he's going to pinch you shut in your sleeping bag and whip you into a tree.
Conclusions:
(I) I didn't even know they had an Australian version of American Idol until I started poking around online while researching this article. (Don't worry if you haven't been watching.)
(II) Garbage Raft < Speed Boat
(III) Somebody needs to turn all of the YA novels into adult movies. I'm not sure why this hasn't happened yet.
(IV) Michael Myers is the scariest slasher movie villain of all-time. It's not even close, really.
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