T-Pain - Best Love Song

Fairly important: the formatting on this post goes to hell in most feeds, and it will be best read at ericonthecharts.blogspot.com

A Tune By Two Guys Who Think the Best Love Song Ever Should Be "The Crunkest"
(Luckily, neither of them know what that means)

T-Pain
Best Love Song
Prom Song
#33 (HiMid)
Faheem Najm
Chris Brown
Young Fyre

Artist:
Play:
Style:
Billboard:
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There's a little bit of ironic fun to be had with T-Pain. I hate autotune as much as the next snarky critic, but there's something about the egregious, inhuman, completely over-the-top way that T-Pain does it. If all the R&B vocals on the radio have been autotuned into an almost comical stereotype, T-Pain usually sounds like he's recording a caricature of everyone else. If Homer Simpson were to set up his own recording studio, his output would sound like T-Pain.

That said, I'm starting to feel self-conscious about logging this many Run!s in a row-- seriously? Another awful, awful song? I knew it was going to be bad as soon as I saw Chris Brown's name attached (why can't I shake that guy?), but this continuous flow of thuddingly bad is making me nostalgic for Ke$ha...

“Best Love Song” isn't lacking in self-awareness as much as it's lacking in awareness altogether. I was focused on the self-aware part initially: lines like “And if I'm gonna take her home, it's got to be better than what they play on the radio” while the song isn't just like what they play on the radio, it actually is what they play on the radio... that kind of writing is so ignorant of itself, of what the song is, that it probably ought to appear in the next Tommy Wiseau picture.

Similarly, if the song is to work, “It's gotta be the crunkest, gotta be the loudest. It's gotta be the best love song she ever heard in her life.” Again, the song doesn't seem to understand that not only is it not the crunkest, it's not crunky in the least (there is a significant lack of crunk here. It is crunkless), and it won't be the loudest because stereo systems and club PAs have volume knobs which can make any one song louder than another. Finally, the song doesn't seem to realize that it's not the best love song anyone's ever heard.

Blinded by how the song isn't aware of what it is in the first place, I almost missed the fact that these guys just don't get it. If they're trying to write the best love song anyone's ever heard, why would they want it to be the crunkest? Even if their crunk-failure levels are epic, did they start writing with Crunchy Black in mind, assuming that was the key to the greatest love song ever? Or loudness? Did they believe that in order for their love song to be the best, it would have to be deafeningly loud, because nothing says romance like jet engine volume levels?

The more I think about it, the more I'm sure T-Pain and Chris Brown don't even know what these words mean. The lyrics could be “It's gotta be the most grindcore, gotta be the most klezmer” and they wouldn't make any less sense. It's not like loudness and crunk have anything to do with the junior prom slow dance number they're actually singing.

Turn on the lights (lights! lights!)
give me a mic (give me a mic)
I'm about to sing
and do it just as she likes (la-likes)
Jump off the stage
crowd surfin all the way (cowabunga)

T-Pain's lyrics are generally about the song he's singing, which doesn't seem to have much to do with a love song. Chris Brown, of course, spends his verse preening; it's annoying that he spends so much time reminding us he's god's gift to womankind when there's so much contrary evidence out there. Amidst all the autotuned non-singing, there's a computerized background chorus backing up everything Brown has to say (including “Cowabunga,” which stands alone as the stupidest lyric in a song filled with stupid lyrics). He does promise to sing to you just how you like, and provides some instructions as to what you have to do if you want to get with him. Such a wonderful guy-- you should do what he says.

Musicially, this is just a Prom song. It's too wimpy and lifeless for clubs, and I can't imagine it flourishing anywhere but teenage dances and pop radio... which wouldn't be the case if it were actually the crunkest (or most klezmer) song someone's ever heard.

For unintentional comedic value, the actual song is a cross between Tenacious D's "Tribute" (a song about the best song in the world that isn't actually the best song in the world) and "I Just Had Sex" (a slightly less subtle parody of Prom songs than "Best Love Song," but not by much).  On its own merits, this song is pretty ridiculous, but viewed through the lens of all the comedy that came before it, you could view a pathetic slow-dance prom song demanding it be The Loudest and The Crunkest as the height of satire.

If anyone has information about T-Pain being a comic genius instead of a happenstance pop star, please let me know.

RUN!

Stay with the song, walk away, or run like hell: