Shea Serrano[Editor's note: Why This Song Sucks determines why particular tracks blow using science. It appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday.]
See also: If You Don't Like Country Music You're A Blue State Elitist
Song: Toby Keith's “Red Solo Cup”
History: “Red Solo Cup” is the second single from Toby Keith's album, Clancy's Tavern. It is about those plastic red cups people use at parties. The entire song. THE ENTIRE SONG. Those familiar with Matthew 24 in the New International Version of the Bible (1984) understand entirely why this is so troublesome. In case you don't have your Bible handy, here's the passage:
Jesus spitting mad game at the Mount of Olives, son.
Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Oh, also, Toby Keith will make a song about a fucking cup that will wiggle onto Billboard's Top 100. When that happens, yeah, Earth is pretty much done for, bro.“
From His mouth comes the word.
Scientific Analysis: Everyone understands that Toby Keith has become the actualization of a truck commercial. But what makes this song invalid is one incorrect assertion. At the end of the first stanza, Keith proclaims, “You, sir, do not have a pair of testicles if you prefer drinking from glass.”
This is little more than a stylistic (albeit crude) way of saying that should you require something more substantial than a plastic cup, you are not a man.
ORLY?
Well, you know who disagrees with that statement. Jean Claude Motherfuckin' Van-Damme, that's who.
Check. And mate.
Allow me to run through his credentials:
1988, Bloodsport: Defeated the hated Chong Li in the Kumite, a vicious underground fighting tournament where it's totally okay to kill people if you want to.
1989, Cyborg: Destroyed villains in a post-apocalyptic future. Many leading scholars praise the movie's scientific accuracy, with Dr. John Realperson famously proclaiming, “This is, without question, exactly what the Earth will look like in 2114.”
1989, Kickboxer: Defeated the hated Tong Po in a vicious underground fighting tournament where it's totally okay to kill people if you want to.
1990, Death Warrant: Busts up an organ smuggling ring in prison, along the way crushing a maniacal killer. (FYI, do you know how he defeated the maniacal killer? By kicking him into a frigg'n furnace, then kicking him head first into a spike after he jumped out of the furnace. JCVD loves kicks; I hear that's how he cut his wedding cake. And his first born son's umbilical cord.)
1990, Lionheart: Defeated the hated Attilla the Hun in a vicious underground fighting tournament where it's totally okay to kill people if you want to.
Dude.
And that's only over a three year span, yo. You know what Toby Keith was doing in the early '90s? Writing a song called “Mama Come Quick” wherein he calls for his mother to come help him because he's fallen off of his bicycle. That's not a joke, yo.
(That's not Toby Keith singing, but I don't imagine too many will notice.)
Bonus Screenshot:
Here's JCVD, just doing the splits on a dance floor in a bar in Bangkok
Conclusions:
(I) Jesus foretold that this day would come.
(II) Toby Keith is basest art.
(III) There is no correlation between preferred beverage containers and number and/or size of testicles. There is, however, one between being Jean Claude Van-Damme versus being Toby Keith.See also: If You Don't Like Country Music You're A Blue State Elitist
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