"I Love You": The Worst Song Ever

or, Vanilla Ice Sells Out

Essay by Matthew Webber

The lounge is filled with VIPs: producers, managers, label execs... DJs, dancers, eyebrow stylists... and finally, the dream, the great white hope, the rapper/dancer/entertainer/star to whom a nation of eyes will turn, at least those eyes in junior high, and maybe the eyes of concerned mothers everywhere. The star, the white boy, plays his funky music: fourteen deadly, ice-cold tracks, an album of songs that bum rush the speakers. The DJs say, “Damn!” The girlies go crazy. One of the homeboys eats spaghetti with a spoon. Over the pasta, the lounge smells like happiness – fame, money, world domination – as each dope melody flows into the next. Mics get rocked. Chumps get waxed. Juice gets kicked. It’s colder than ever.

The album ends. It sounds like a hit. The V.I.P. posse congratulates itself.

“If rhyme was a drug, we’d sell it by the gram!”

“We’re cooking MCs like a pound of bacon!”

“It flows like a harpoon daily and nightly!”

Vanilla Ice responds with a simple, “Yup, yup.” Then he rises, starts to leave. “Yo, man, let’s get outta here. Word to your–”

“Stop.” A voice, a stranger, emerges from the ether. “Collaborate and listen.” His suit commands the posse’s attention; otherwise, the jackers would’ve jacked him, and how. “The album’s not done. You need one more song.”

The DJ, Deshay, puts his gauge away, but Vanilla keeps his hand on his nine, just in case. The stranger could be full of eight balls, or worse. He might be a chump; he might act ill. “If the situation in which I’ve just found myself does indeed become a problem,” Vanilla thinks, “then, yo, I’ll solve it.” He’s worked too hard at fabricating his past to let some stranger ruin his future. He’ll keep his composure; it’s time to get loose. For now, though, he’ll listen, and that’s all he’ll do. Collaboration seems out of the question.

“All right,” says the Ice Man. “But this better be a hell of a concept. Conducted and formed. Feasible. At least as much as a chemical spill. Basically, will I wanna step with this?”

“What you need is a song called ‘I Love You,’” says the stranger. “For the ladies.”

“I’m poppin’ it the most,” says Vanilla. “You know what I’m sayin’?”

“Um,” says the stranger. The posse laughs.

“I’m hittin’ hard and the girlies goin’ crazy. Vanilla’s on the mic, man, I’m not lazy.”

“Oh, I wasn’t saying that, Mr. Ice. I know you’re not hooked on that ‘S-S-S-Y’! I’m just saying – I’m just suggesting – that instead of rapping about these girlies – I mean, ladies – you sing a song directly to them. A love song. A ballad. You know, like LL Cool J does. And the ladies love that guy! After all, grown women buy albums, too. It’s not just prepubescent boys, even though there are literally millions of them in the Midwest who are gonna buy your album this year and throw it away next year while subsequently denying they’ve ever heard of you, St. Peter-style.”

“Go on, white boy,” says the Ice Man, suddenly all ears, instead of all cheekbones. He stores away the reference to the Gospels for possible inclusion in the liner notes of his sophomore album. “Go.”

“As you surely must know – you can’t be that dumb – you’re gonna get sold as a product, not an artist. You’re gonna fill a niche for millions of kids who want to like songs with rhythmic speaking, but aren’t quite ready for actual, honest-to-goodness rapping. Something about polysyllables scares them. Or maybe it’s the blackness of every other rapper. Not to play the race card, but come on? Vanilla Ice? Wearing the American flag as a jacket? Middle America will devour you like ice cream! The kids are gonna eat you up!

“They’re gonna shit you out, but still. White boys and white girls will enjoy you going down. The kids who don’t know that you jacked ‘Under Pressure’? They’ll just think the beat is dope, because, lets face it, the beat is dope. Queen and David Bowie? Damn. That’s a beat that can’t be ruined, not even by a flow as simple as yours. If anything, your simplicity helps to sell the song, since the kids can more easily memorize the lyrics – and even bust ‘em out at their weddings! You’ll see.”

“What?” says Vanilla, honored, yet skeptical. His fabricated past should’ve rendered him more dangerous.

“No, really. Trust me on this. It’s you and Sir Mix-A-Lot and the Rednex. You’ll see. And Tiffany’s gonna do Playboy. You’ll love it!”

The Ice Man leans back and imagines the future. He’s blinded by the sweat that rolls into his eyes, one of the perils of shaving his eyebrows. All he can see is Debbie Gibson, naked. And Paula Abdul, strung out on drugs. Tiffany? Drowned, and choking on coins, with a mall cop diving in after her body.

The shadowy ghosts of... reality TV? The specter of something called... YouTube? The fear! Marky Mark at the Oscars? A nightmare! Ice-cold night sweats! Holy fuck! At least his friend Hammer will never go away. One more dance-off, for old time’s sake...

Is this what havin’ a roni is like?

The man in the suit continues his pitch, ignoring the terror, the dying star. “So ‘Ice Ice Baby’ – we know that’s a hit. ‘Conducted and formed?’ It’s quite the high concept. It’s the best ‘brand new invention’ in pop culture since the Ninja Turtles. We really oughta hook you up.

“But that’s just the kids. So, what about their parents? More specifically, what about their mothers? What about their grandmothers?

“Vanilla – if I can call you that – a smart businessman diversifies. You need to expand your portfolio of fans. If you want to last – or at least last longer than Another Bad Creation – you need to appeal to everyone, everywhere. Or at least you need to try. So, try it! Hell, you’ve already got your beatboxing track, as if any hip-hop head could ever take you seriously. You’ve already got your reggae jam, as if you’ve ever a) listened to, enjoyed, or been inspired by reggae; b) seen, talked to, or even, before looking it up in the encyclopedia, had foreknowledge of a ‘Rosta Man’; or c) made friends with black people who aren’t on your payroll.

“You’ve got your dance tracks, your sex jams, your skits. You’ve got a bit of everything, or everything that sucks. Clearly, you’re cool with looking like a sellout. So why not sell out one more time? Why not go the sellout distance – like Costner in the sellout corn! – and add this one more, one last, track?

“Add ‘I Love You.’ For the ladies. And also for the kids who’ll laugh at you later, mocking not you, but themselves for ever listening. Give their lives meaning, in contrast to yours. Your songs are bad, Ice, but this song is bad. Don’t just jump the shark...”

“What?”

“...but catch the shark, mount it on a goalpost, and set the new world record in pole vaulting over that shark.”

“What?”

Poof! He’s gone, in a sulfurous flash.

Vanilla Ice grins. He smells collaboration.

Before the posse knows what hurt ‘em (hint: it wasn’t the aforementioned Hammer), Vanilla Ice enlists other sellouts in project: The songwriter looking for her first big break. The saxophone soloist with hungry mouths to feed. The recording engineer whose lifelong dream is to splice a G-rated phone-sex conversation into the breakdown of a pop song. And every other enabler who hears this track, surely knows how rancid it is, but places it on the To the Extreme album anyway in perhaps the most futile bid for crossover appeal – or appealingness in any form – in the history of recorded sound.

And finally – finally! – the Iceman cometh: cooing, whispering, coughing up a hairball... less like a rapper than a non-native-English speaker, less like a loverman than a heavy breather, less like LL Cool J in the bedroom than Heavy D at the top of a flight of stairs.

Record it. Mix it. Slap it on the album. Sell it to millions of kids... like me.

Burn out, die, and fall to earth.

Vanilla Ice’s “I Love You” is a song bereft: of melody, sincerity, virtuosity, or anything else that makes music musical. Crass, unlistenable, unintentionally hilarious, “I Love You” is, simply, a song bereft. Calling it cheesy insults America’s dairy industry. Calling it schmaltzy demeans yourself, for lacking a stronger, more memorable word. Really, it isn’t a song at all, except when you’re proclaiming it the worst song ever.

I hate you, “I Love You,” and your saxophonist, too.

Goodwill Hunting: MC Hammer

Uh-oh! Here Comes the Hammer Apologia

Essay by Matthew Webber

Best. Album. Ever. (The 1990 Version)

Although I had crushes on several cute classmates, in 1990, I loved three people: MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, and Paula Abdul. (Sure, I loved my family, too, but what kid in middle school listens to his family?) I only regret this last obsession. The Hammer and the Iceman, they’re still at least listenable, as they never dueted with a scatting cartoon cat. They also had nothing to do with Clay Aiken. Admittedly, however, to the Idol judge’s credit, she never shaved designs in her sideburns or eyebrows. (What boy in middle school didn’t want that hairstyle?) But I definitely don’t want to marry her anymore. I’m also over Elizabeth Berkley.

Of the three, the Hammer was probably my favorite. Not only was Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em one of the first albums I ever bought with my own money, but a poster of MC Hammer was one of the first non-baseball posters I ever hung in my room. Keep in mind, at the time, I was only eleven, and I had to ask permission first. (Also keep in mind, I still have that poster.)

But MC Hammer was worth the risk. Of what? I’m not sure, but I feared my mom’s response, since any rap at all back then was rumored to be dangerous. Even a clean rap like “U Can’t Touch This” – which could’ve been a reference to his penis, I suppose – was thought to incite bad behavior in the youth, behavior like dancing and thinking of London.

I was still naive enough to hope for such corruption, for anything badder than skipping my homework, for something as illicit as playing music loudly. Thus, I admired my tape and my poster, taking tiptoed baby steps towards juvenile delinquency, or at least towards a life filled with music that was mine, music my parents simply didn’t get.

MC Hammer spoke to me, and what he said was, “We got to pray.” Clearly, this was a dangerous message. You better believe I followed it nightly. After all, what would he want me to do?

Today, I know the gospel truth: The guy’s about as scary as Neil Patrick Harris, especially in contrast to the rappers who eclipsed him, rappers who rapped about killing each other, rappers who (allegedly) lived out their lyrics. I learned this fact about two years later. Snoop and Dre – now those guys were scary!

All throughout high school, I mocked my former favorite – now known as “Hammer,” without the “MC” – for rapping like a dude in parachute pants, instead of like a dude in pajama pants and shackles. Basically, I thought his music was wack, mostly because of his lyrical content. Plus, he danced, which made him not worth listening to. Why was he dancing – to distract us from his lameness? You didn’t see Tupac doing the Running Man! (Not that I liked Tupac either yet, but still.)

To Hammer’s credit, you didn’t see him dying. I guess that makes them even.

The Hammer Apologia

The time for a Hammer reappraisal is due. Actually, I feel it’s long overdue. Thus, here comes the Hammer apologia. Sure, nostalgia plays a part, as well as the cachet I’ll earn for being a contrarian – for going against the critical grain, for swimming against the critical tide, for spitting into the critical wind, etc., etc, etc. – but no, I’m serious: He’s worth another listen.

Has anyone taken him seriously recently? If they did it in print, I can’t recall. Again, he danced. His raps were clean. His beats seem quaint, if not outdated. Basically, the man’s a joke. The same things I said back in 1993, when I was a freshman who thought he knew everything, are still being said by people who should know better.

This critical consensus belittles MC Hammer, which frankly, I think he doesn’t deserve, and I think this more strongly than simple nostalgia (which, I admit, afflicts me quite acutely).

Now, I’m not saying the man’s a genius. I’m just saying he’s not that bad.

Compare him to his peers from the era, for starters. The great Sir Mix-A-Lot? Wreckx-N-Effect? It’s not that I’ve forgotten the words to their hits, or that I won’t dance when I hear them at a wedding, it’s just that, come on, they’re all about ass!

Mix-A-Lot claims that his song is empowering, and true, there’s some merit in his praise of black women, especially in contrast to the bimbos on Cosmo. It’s worth an exploration in a cultural studies thesis. And true, good ol’ “Rump Shaker” can teach the kids geography, at least it terms of body parts that roughly equal Delaware.

But no one would dare to proclaim these songs as timeless, on par with other wedding songs like “At Last” and “Unchained Melody,” and every other wedding song that you don't mind hearing elsewhere.

Hammer’s positivity remains slightly corny, but twenty years later, it isn’t so embarrassing. (His deep album cut “She’s Soft and Wet,” however, is.) When I hear him at a wedding, he doesn’t make me cringe, beneath my ironic, guilty-pleasure mask.

His two biggest hits, “U Can’t Touch This” and “Pray,” remain more respectable, if not more danceable, than anything out of the Kris Kross katalog.

He doesn’t bear the stigma of misappropriation, of putting on a culture like a star-spangled suit, of faking a background of inner-city poverty. In other words, he’s more credible than my boy Vanilla Ice.

He makes me dance, without the baggage. Without the uncomfortable glances towards grandma.

This was the start of the nineties, people. This was what he was competing against, at least in the realm of top-forty radio. You’ve got to keep these things in context.

Further, if rappers are supposed to keep it real, then Hammer seems as real to me as hip-hop ever gets. The man, after all, was not a gangster; to rap like a gangster would’ve been disingenuous. (Not that this stops other rappers from trying. Not that this stopped him from doing it later.)

The man was a churchgoing, suit-wearing gentleman; thus, he rapped about legal pursuits: praying, dancing, the kids, etc. When he did mention crime, it was always to condemn it, as well as to encourage us to do our best to stop it.

Except for the one time I stole a pack of gum, I tried to follow the Hammer’s advice. “Help the Children.” Sure. Why not? I thought I was helping by rapping along.

So did millions of other kids. And that’s the real problem, the reason he’s a joke: Most of his fans weren’t old enough to drive. He shared a target audience with Paula Abdul.

And even though he gave us all that first sweet taste of rap, long before Biggie and other rap giants, he never got credit for blowing our minds. Sure, we’d hear hip-hop eventually, inevitably, but the simple fact remains that we discovered it through him, we dumb, suburban, mall-shopping kids, me and my friends and gazillions of others.

He might not have inspired the rappers who came after him – I’ve never heard him cited as an influence anyway – but I know he inspired at least one little kid. He inspired me to open my ears, to give his genre, hip-hop, a chance – and maybe even just to give music a chance. I bought his album, I bought his poster, and I’ve identified myself as a music fan ever since.

He did what his rapping peers didn’t do (at least not until I discovered them much later): He let me relate to him. He made me care. He became an artist I could idolize – and love.

My musical obsession started with him.

But even if yours began with someone else, the Hammer, I believe, remains too legit to quit.

My first favorite album deserves another chance. It’s soulful, introspective, and danceable at weddings. It has that rare mix of intelligence and fun. (The fact that it reminds me of my youth doesn’t hurt.) Listening to it again bears this out. If you’ve got a copy lying around, you really ought to try it.

MC Hammer is a true pioneer, and that is a beat, uh, you can’t touch.

Bonus Track: The Song Title Sentence Game

In a bit of serendipity that’s amazed me for two decades, the following three consecutive song titles on Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em form a complete sentence:

Yo!! Sweetness
Help the Children
On Your Face

It doesn’t get any better than that. It just doesn’t.

Goodwill Hunting: Empire Records

The Unified Theory of Empire Records

Review by Matthew Webber

One can suspect that a movie’s gonna suck if the soundtrack gets mentioned more often than the story – especially when that soundtrack is a showcase for the Ape Hangers.

Empire Records kinda sucks.

I saw it once and promptly forgot it, other than a vague recollection of boredom, and a lingering confusion over Joey Lauren Adams, who sounded less squeaky than she did in Chasing Amy, probably because she was now Renee Zellweger. Clearly, I didn’t see it again, or else I would’ve made this realization sooner. But back when I saw it, in 1995, the future Oscar winner was another token blonde, the poor grunge-rock fan’s Joey Lauren Adams. Otherwise, the film was utterly unmemorable. Kinda like the Ape Hangers’ music. And existence.

I couldn’t even recall the soundtrack.

But that’s what they’re selling you, unabashedly, on the box, whose unintended comedy was well worth my two dollars. (Eh, why not? I love the nineties.) “They’re selling music but not selling out,” says the Empire Records tagline on the front. “A killer soundtrack,” says the illustrious Skip Sheffield of the heralded Boca Raton News on the back. “Woof! I’m wearing headphones! Woof!” says the dog on the front.

Even the characters join in the fun, as their dialogue gets turned into advertising copy. To wit:

The director of Pump Up the Volume cranks it up another notch with this comedy about an eventful day in the lives of the young slackers, doers and dreams who work at a bustling store called Empire Records.

“This music is the glue of the world,” one of Empire’s clerks says. “It holds it all together.” Gin Blossoms, the Cranberries, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Cracker, Evan Dando, Better Than Ezra and more hot alternative rock underscores virtually every scene.

It’s not just a movie, it’s the Lollapalooza side stage!

When I took it home and watched it, I didn’t find it horrible. I simply found it hackneyed and shoddily constructed. It’s more like the dried-up glue stick of the world.

Basically, the characters – these slacking, dreaming clerks – reenact their favorite songs. Everyone comes to work as they are, to kind of do work but mostly just to talk. They’re losers, baby, so why don’t you support them? Also, Liv Tyler pouts a lot. Hot!

But then – oh no! – the boss hatches a bogus scheme to sell the store – thus, selling out – to the MegaCorporateDoucheBag record-store chain, I think. A wrist-cutting punk girl shaves her pretty head. A washed-up pop star has sex on a copy machine. A dude in a black turtleneck has to rob the store in order to save it. Or something. It’s not really that important, yo. Not when you’ve got Edwyn Collins on the soundtrack!

So they slack and they dream and they finally, like, do, to keep their store independent (and pricy). They fight the power of an evil corporation! They rage against the consolidation machine! It’s one small step for readers of Spin, one giant leap for future readers of Pitchfork!

Good thing they didn’t have file sharing yet. That would’ve been just a little too ironic.

God, this film is totally nineties. So am I – and I’m totally underwhelmed, now that I’ve seen it too recently to forget it. Everything about it belabors the point. Music: good. Money: bad. Moneyed music: the evil empire. Talk amongst yourselves.

It’s just like Clerks, but with crappier cinematography. Reality Bites, but made for the kids! A Sonic Youth B-side, as covered by Bush!

Plus, it’s little more than an ad for its soundtrack – available now on A&M Records! – thereby undermining its heavy-handed premise.

Again, it's not horrible, just a faded flannel flashback.

* * *

“But, Matt,” you say, when you’re feeling nostalgic, all of you guys who remember Sponge. “What nineties classics would you recommend instead?” Well, that depends on what you miss.

So-so films with dynamite soundtracks? Singles. (Both of which annihilate Empire Records.)

Liv Tyler’s navel? Aerosmith videos. (As mentioned on the back of the Empire Records box.)

Ethan Embry’s cutesy mugging? Can’t Hardly Wait.

Bald chicks? Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” video.

Ape Hangers? Man, I can’t even tell you.