Pop music of today routinely pisses me off, but Far East Movement has piled on the last straw for me lately. Let me break down the lyrics of their new hit single, Billboard’s #6 (and rising), Like a G6, and maybe you’ll understand why I feel the way I do.
(Hook)
Poppin’ bottles in the ice, like a blizzard
I know what poppin’ bottles means, but why are you doing it in the ice? I guess popping ice cold bottles or pouring bottles on ice doesn’t have a really nice ring to it. Anyway, fine, I’ll give you that ice is like a blizzard and it fits your syllable strategy. Or wait, are you putting bottles in the freezer? That’s the opposite of drinking. (Update: This could mean placing a bottle of champagne into a bucket of ice, which actually…makes sense.)
When we drink, we do it, right gettin slizzard
Good call, taking a word that approximately no one uses to define being drunk, so that you can later claim being the originator AND rhyme with blizzard! Great start guys!
Sippin’ sizzurp in my ride, like Three 6
I hope you guys weren’t ever trying to be role models. “Sizzurp” (aka “purp” and “drank”) is prescription cough syurp mixed Sprite or vodka and candy flavoring. People die from it all the time. If Lil Wayne speaks out against it, you know it’s gotta be bad.
Anyway, this line is nothing more than the title of a Three 6 Mafia single, so creativity–.
Now I’m feelin’ so fly, like a G6
__This is where I lose it. This is the hook of your song, the catchy part, the part people remember and repeat over and over, and you rhymed “six” with “six.” You can’t do that.
Like a G6, like a G6
And again.
Now I’m feelin’ so fly, like a G6
Ahhh! Seriously, stop!
But here’s what really gets me. You’d think the “G6” they refer to is a plane, since they get so “fly,” but it isn’t. The “G” line jets (Gulfstream) tops out right now at G5. The G6 is being planned but there still a ways off. In an interview, the group says they’re referring to a Pontiac G6, a car! A Pontiac spokeswoman confirmed to me that no Pontiac models currently can fly and there are no clear plans to have flying Pontiacs anytime soon.
Even then, the female wears airplane earrings in the music video and the male rappers make jet-taking-off gestures to the camera constantly. These guys have a Gulfstream 4, probably knew they couldn’t afford the 5, figured out that “six” rhymed with “six” … the rest is history.
_(Verse 1)
Gimme that Mo-Moet
Gimme that Cry-Crystal_
Those are various types of expensive alcohol. Standard name dropping here.
_Ladies love my style, at my table gettin’ wild
Get them bottles poppin, we get that drip and that drop_
When you spend several hundred dollars on a bottle of liquor, I also suggest you get every last drop. Is that what you mean?
Now give me 2 more bottles cuz you know it don’t stop
Right, if you keep ordering, it won’t stop. These guys are brilliant.
_(Bridge 1)
808 hell yeah_
More shenanigans? Name dropping again, this time with the famous Roland TR-808 drum machine…but, there are absolutely no 808 samples in your song Far East Movement, so what gives? The few percussive sounds are definitely not from an 808 and everything else is from a synth. Correct me if I’m wrong… (Update: kurt suggests this might refer to the Hawaii area code, though the group is based in California.)
_Drink it up, drink-drink it up,
When sober girls around me, they be actin’ like they drunk_
Actually, that might be you perceiving them to be drunk. I’ve never ever heard of a sober girl liking a drunk guy. Just saying…
_They be actin like they drunk, actin-actin like they drunk
When sober girls around me actin-actin like they drunk_
Now, not only did you rhyme the next to lines with the same word again, but you filled the rest of the “verse” with the start of the stanza. Way to pad the song folks.
(Hook)
(Verse 2)
Sippin’ on, sippin’ on sizz, Im’a ma-make it fizz
“Sizz”-urp? The same stuff you mentioned in your hook? Well let’s hope you didn’t mean freebased heroin. Anyway, it’s the carbonation in the Sprite that’s making it fizz, so if you don’t drink it, it’s going to go flat.
_Girl, I keep it gangsta, poppin’ bottles at the crib
This is how we live, every single night_
George Thorogood, anyone? No, just me? Okay. Well, fine, you can buy expensive liquor for your house. I’m jealous, I can’t say anything negative here then…
Take that bottle to the head, and let me see you fly
Role models!
(Bridge 1)
(Hook)
_(Bridge 2)
It’s that 808 bump, make you put yo hands up
Make you put yo hands up, put yo, put yo hands up
You can’t Touch this_
It’s not an 808!
(Bridge 2)
(Bridge 2)
(Hook)
That’s all? That’s the end? You went for a whole 4 minutes and rhymed a total of four words. Really, go back and count them (blizzard, crystal, drop, and ‘sizz’).
Anyway, I’m not one to step on success. I’m all for small time artists making it big. Really, I am. I wish these guys all the success in the world. But please, really, let’s get back to respecting the music. I hate that songs like this (plus anything by Ke$ha, et al.) get popular when there are so many more creative songs written and produced by super-hardworking unsigned talent that will never get radio play.
What happened to music?